Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH SCHLESWIG (REFUGEES)

Professor Savory: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will now state what progress has been made with the evacuation of refugees from South Schleswig; and whether he is aware that refugees are still pouring in to South Schleswig, so that the native population is overwhelmed by the number of these immigrants from East Prussia and Pomerania.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Mayhew): The distribution of refugees within the Federal Republic is now a matter for the German authorities.

Professor Savory: Will not the Under-Secretary give us the reply made yesterday by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the protests of the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian Ambassadors, and the Icelandic Minister, against this continued influx of refugees into South Schleswig, which constitutes a terrible danger on account of the pressure on the Danish frontier?

Mr. Mayhew: That is a different question. I am dealing here with the distribution inside the Federal German Republic, which is not a matter for His Majesty's Government.

Professor Savory: Is it not a fact that there is a continued influx? Is not the Under-Secretary aware of the statement made by the Danish Secretary of State, that between April and June, 1949, no fewer than 17,000 additional refugees poured into South Schleswig?

Mr. Mayhew: We are aware that this is a great problem. As far as the influx across the interzonal frontier is concerned, we are considering new proposals to control and restrict the influx without interfering with the rights of political asylum of those coming across.

Sir Ronald Ross: Is the situation now one in which we have abandoned the Danes in South Schleswig to the Germans?

Mr. Mayhew: That is another question.

Oral Answers to Questions — AQABA (BRITISH FORCE)

Dr. Segal: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how long a British task force has now been stationed at Aqaba; and what task it is now performing.

Mr. Mayhew: A British force has been at Aqaba since 7th January, 1949. It is there at the request of the Jordan Government and in fulfilment of the obligations of His Majesty's Government under the Anglo-Jordan Treaty of 1948.

Dr. Segal: In view of our decision to withdraw from Greece and our heavy commitments elsewhere, would it not be a helpful gesture if the whole question of retaining these forces at Aqaba could now be reconsidered?

Mr. Mayhew: No, Sir, I do not think it would be helpful at this stage. I think it would be more likely to be unsettling.

Mr. Ronald Chamberlain: Since the troops went in at the express request of the Transjordan Government, are we aware whether they still require them there as a matter of safety? Have we inquired whether they still wish the troops to be there?

Mr. Mayhew: I have no doubt that the situation is as it has been, that they still wish to have the troops.

Oral Answers to Questions — SUDAN

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) how many deaths occurred between 11th July and 31st July, 1949, in Sinkat, Sudan; and how many of these were due to starvation;
(2) what international relief organisations have entered the Condominium of the Sudan since June, 1949, and, in particular, on what date the Egyptian Red Crescent Society applied for permission to send a mission to the Sudan; on what date permission was granted; and what were the sizes of the delegation and the itinerary followed by it.

Mr. Mayhew: The hon. Member is misinformed. The number of deaths recorded in Sinkat between these dates this year was 28. None of these was due to starvation. No international relief organisation has entered the Sudan since June. The Egyptian Government proposed on 18th April to send an Egyptian Red Crescent Society Mission to the Sudan. The Sudan Government agreed on the same day on condition that details of the composition of the Mission and its proposed operations were first provided. In the event no such Mission visited the Sudan, but the Society's Secretary-General visited Khartoum, Erkowit, Sinkat and Port Sudan between 20th and 25th June.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Under-Secretary aware that I received a long list from the Sudan of names of actual victims of starvation which was sent on to the Foreign Office?

Mr. Mayhew: I think that the hon. Member should check his sources of information.

Oral Answers to Questions — U.S. VISAS (BRITISH SUBJECTS)

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that the rules made by the United States Government relating to the issue of visas are unfair to British subjects; and if he will withdraw the concession of free British visas for American citizens entering this country until parity of treatment is agreed to by the United States authorities.

Mr. Mayhew: The decision to abolish visas for United States citizens travelling to the United Kingdom was taken in accordance with the general policy of His Majesty's Government to remove restrictions on travel as far as possible, and a number of European Governments have taken similar action. By reason of their

special immigration problems, it is not possible for the United States Government to waive the visa requirement. Every Government has the right to decide to whom it should allow entry into its country. There is nothing unfair to British subjects in the exercise of this right by the United States Government in the matter of visas. British subjects, resident in the United Kingdom, who are eligible to enter the United States as bona fide non-immigrants, can be granted visas free of charge.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is not my hon. Friend aware that an eligible person, in spite of his eligibility, is treated like a criminal? His full finger prints are taken, he is photographed in three positions, he has to pay the expenses of a blood test at a laboratory and get an international vaccination certificate as well? Except for the one case mentioned by my hon. Friend, he has to pay 10 dollars even though he is a British citizen and eligible, and he has to pay the 10 dollars at the increased value of the dollar. Does that not seem unfair?

Mr. Mayhew: If the hon. Member will give a specific instance of the last case he mentioned I will look into it. The rest of his supplementary is a matter for the United States Government.

Mr. Gallacher: While a Government have the right to decide who shall come into their particular territory, does not the Minister agree that when the government of a foreign country take up a particularly bad attitude towards citizens of this country, the Government of this country should be ready to take similar action against their citizens? They do it elsewhere.

Mr. Stokes: Is there any news from Moscow that the Soviet Government propose to lift visas into the U.S.S.R.?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH LEGATION (INCIDENT), BUDAPEST

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in connection with the incident at His Majesty's Legation at Budapest, described in the Foreign Office statement issued on 30th September, 1949, whether Mr. Walter Harrison, a security officer employed at


that time at the Legation, made the first contact with the Hungarian authorities and of his own volition.

Mr. Mayhew: Yes, Sir. Mr. Harrison, who was a maintenance engineer, got into touch with the Hungarian authorities in order to inquire about the whereabouts of the Legation's telephone operator. This does not justify the treatment which he subsequently received at the hands of the Hungarian Secret Police.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Is my hon. Friend now prepared to contradict publicly the story that was first put out by the Foreign Office, that Mr. Harrison had been kidnapped and then tortured, and will he see that his fellow Under-Secretary of State does not continue the quite dishonest story that this man was kidnapped and tortured, which the man himself has admitted is quite untrue?

Mr. Mayhew: About the question of who made the first initiative, which is a secondary factor, there is room for two opinions, but his treatment by the Hungarian police was disgraceful and about it there can be no two opinions.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREECE (DEATH SENTENCES)

Mr. Warbey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what instructions he has given to the British delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in regard to proposals made in the Political Committee that the Greek Government should be requested to show clemency towards political prisoners now under sentence of death in Greece.

Mr. Mayhew: None, Sir, since the proposals were raised without previous warning. His Majesty's Government nevertheless fully approve of the part which the United Kingdom Delegate took in the debate.

Mr. Warbey: Whatever the Government's view may be of the official legal position, will my hon. Friend find some way of indicating the abhorrence that would be felt among Western democrats if, now that the civil war in Greece is ended, men whose only crimes, if any, are political, should be executed?

Mr. Mayhew: I cannot agree with all the assumptions in that question. As has been said before, we have no standing to intervene in these trials. At the same time I am sure it is the hope of the whole House that the Greek Government will find it possible to be generous to those who have been misled.

Mr. Driberg: May I ask my hon. Friend—arising out of what he has just said—at what point of time did His Majesty's Government cease to have any standing to intervene, since they were able to make representations until fairly recently?

Mr. Mayhew: We have never had any status to intervene in this question, which is an internal affair of the Greek Government.

Mr. Austin: In view of the previous answer to my hon. Friend, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that it was reported in yesterday's Press that a further 19 persons are being sentenced to death in Greece, and that the question of their execution hangs in the balance and is dependent on the views of what is known as the pardons committee. In view of the opinions expressed, will my hon. Friend make representations?

Mr. Mayhew: I have already answered the main point of that supplementary question. I would add, however, that whatever the merits of these cases, which I do not wish to prejudice, the campaign which is being run for these people by Communist controlled organisations, such as the League for Democracy in Greece, is a shocking example of mendacity and hypocrisy.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL EMPIRE

Makerere College (Status)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how soon he anticipates that it will be possible to fulfil the promise that Makerere College is to be a University College for all the peoples of East Africa; and what has been the result of the recent discussions with the University of London.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): I cannot at present state exactly when Makerere will


achieve university college status. Negotiations with the University of London are proceeding and with the valuable help of the Colonial Inter-University Council I am hopeful that the College will soon take a considerable step forward towards full status.

Mr. Driberg: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the anxiety and eagerness which exists about this matter, and can we take it that he will not, like the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, attribute every humanitarian impulse of this or any other kind to Communist propaganda?

Mr. Creech Jones: We are all very anxious that the College should acquire university status as quickly as possible, and all efforts to that end are being made.

Mr. Pickthorn: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is much more important that the standards should be university standards before the status is granted, than that the status should be granted in the minimum period of time?

Mr. Creech Jones: I thoroughly agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said, and that explains the somewhat slow progress that is being made.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the reasons for the standard not being achieved is because dons, or whatever they are called, are not being given a sufficient attraction in the way of salaries to take them out there?

Mr. Creech Jones: No, I do not think that that is the explanation of it at all.

Police (Firearms)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will instruct colonial governors that, in industrial or political disturbances involving danger to life and property, the police are not to use firearms until other more humane methods for restoring order have been used in vain.

Mr. Creech Jones: I addressed all Colonial Governors in this sense over a year ago. The use of humane methods of restoring order, with recourse to fire

arms only as a last resort, is the accepted Colonial practice.

Beer Clubs

Dr. Segal: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies in which territories have officially sponsored beer clubs been instituted.

Mr. Creech Jones: I am not clear what my hon. Friend has in mind. If he will let me know what he has in mind, I will make any necessary inquiries.

Gold Production

Mr. Erroll: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies in view of the importance of increasing gold production in the Colonies what steps he is taking to help the industry to recruit the necessary labour required for expansion.

Mr. Creech Jones: The Governments concerned are fully aware of the importance of gold production and will, I am sure, be ready to consider any requests for assistance, having regard to the labour needs of other industries.

Mr. Erroll: Are the Governments concerned making sure that the local populations fully understand the importance of the gold mining industry as a dollar earner?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, Sir. This matter has been discussed on two or three occasions both with finance committees and legislative councils.

Mr. Harrison: Will my right hon. Friend take steps to see that no local coercion is used to drive the local population into the gold mines?

Sterling Exchange Rate

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is prepared to make a statement on the effect of devaluation in the Colonies; and what arrangements have been made to counter inflation in those Colonial territories in which increased sterling income may be expected.

Mr. Creech Jones: It is too early to say precisely how the change in the sterling/dollar exchange rate will affect the different Colonies or the degree to which inflationary conditions may arise in any of them. Colonial Governments are,


however, fully alive to the importance of avoiding inflation by employing appropriate methods in the local circumstances.

Mr. Stokes: In his consideration of this matter will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the devaluation policy is really a wangle on the part of all bankers everywhere to make the people everywhere poorer?

Administrative and Technical Posts

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many senior administrative and technical posts in the Colonial Service are now vacant; and whether he will consider creating a pool of specialist senior officers which could be drawn on for short periods of service by Colonial Governments.

Mr. Creech Jones: The number of vacancies of all kinds for expatriate staff in higher grade posts stood at 1,198 on 30th September, as against 1,395 at the end of June. The system of creating central pools of specialist officers, which can be drawn on by Colonial Governments to carry out particular undertakings, has already been adopted in various fields of research, notably in medicine and agriculture. There are also central organisations for dealing with land and geological surveys. This pooling system is one which may well be extended in the future to other specialised services.

Mr. Skinnard: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether his answer does not tend to discount his denial that there was centralised Colonial Service recruitment in this country?

Mr. Creech Jones: I am not aware that I have ever denied that there is such a thing.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALAYA (INTERNATIONAL RUBBER STUDY GROUP)

Mr. Pickthorn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what answer has been given to the request by the Federal Legislative Council of Malaya that Malaya should have its own representative on the International Rubber Study Group.

Mr. Creech Jones: A statement containing the answer to this request by the Federal Legislative Council will be made at the next meeting of that Council on 15th November; and I should prefer not to anticipate that statement now.

Mr. Pickthorn: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the correct use of the word "anticipate"?

Oral Answers to Questions — JAMAICA (PRESS LEGISLATION)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will circulate in HANSARD details of the new legislation restricting Press freedom in Jamaica; and why this legislation has been introduced at the present time.

Mr. Creech Jones: I will put a copy of the proposed legislation in the Library of the House. According to my information only notice of the Bill has been given and it has not yet received a First reading. I am in communication with the Governor regarding these proposals.

Mr. Driberg: With all respect to my right hon. Friend, is it not the case that he was in communication with the Governor about a week ago in connection with his answer to another question on this subject? On a matter as important as this, when legislation is actually pending, cannot he communicate with the Governor by cable and get a quick answer?

Mr. Creech Jones: Certainly, I have been in telegraphic communication with the Governor about this.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG

Population

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present population of Hong Kong; and what percentage is British and what Chinese.

Mr. Creech Jones: The civil population was estimated in June, 1949, to be 1,860,000 of which about half per cent. was British and 99 per cent. Chinese. Of the Chinese, it is estimated that between 20 and 30 per cent. are British subjects by virtue of birth in the Colony.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister going to take any steps to consult the Chinese about affairs in Hong Kong?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, there is the Legislative Council already, on which the Chinese are represented.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: Do those figures include Kowloon and the leased territories?

Mr. Creech Jones: I think I should need notice of that question.

Dollar Imports

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present dollar deficit in Hong Kong; what is the extent and nature of the dollar imports which have caused this deficit; and what steps are being taken to reduce it.

Mr. Creech Jones: I regret that the information in reply to the first part of the Question is not available. The value of the imports into Hong Kong from the United States and Canada in 1948 was £27.1 million. The nature of these imports can be seen from published trade returns, and I am sending my hon. Friend an extract. The dollar imports for essential purposes in the Colony are strictly controlled by import licensing. Dollar goods for the entrepôt trade with China and neighbouring countries are financed without drawing on the sterling area dollar pool.

Mr. Skinnard: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the dollar imports intended for internal trade are not being retained in Hong Kong?

Mr. Creech Jones: I am not aware of that.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the Treasury only permitted the open market in dollars in Hong Kong because there was a net intake of dollars from the influx of raw materials from China? Will he look over the whole of that matter now, to see whether that arrangement is necessary?

Oral Answers to Questions — SIERRA LEONE (SALE OF SPIRITS)

Dr. Segal: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of deaths from the drinking of methylated

spirits in Sierra Leone, he will consider legislation to prohibit the sale of methylated spirits in that territory except from chemists and under proper safeguards.

Mr. Creech Jones: I am consulting the Governor on the matter, and will write to my hon. Friend.

Dr. Segal: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is becoming a serious problem in some territories, and will he urge that more active steps be taken to deal with it?

Mr. Creech Jones: It is because I have no information upon it that I am communicating with the Governor. We have no information about it in my office.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOLD COAST (GOLD DUTY)

Mr. David Renton: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in view of the importance of increasing gold production in the Gold Coast, what steps he is taking to reduce the tax on the gold output of British companies.

Mr. Creech Jones: The Gold Coast Government are at present considering representations from the industry regarding the gold duty.

Mr. Renton: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that gold mining is, in effect, digging up dollars, that the gold production of our Colonial territories has fallen by 30 per cent. since before the war, that the companies carrying it out have to pay British Profits Tax and Income Tax, and will he ensure that the necessary incentives are applied?

Mr. Creech Jones: I think the hon. Member will recall that quite recently there were adjustments under taxation which did impose much lighter burdens on some of the more difficult mines.

Mr. Stokes: Would it not be a more satisfactory economic solution to leave the gold in the ground and sell it to the Americans there?

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS (SECRETARIAT, TRANSFER)

Mr. Haydn Davies: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) why the decision of the former


Governor of Cyprus to abandon the transfer of the secretariat from Nicosia to Troodos during the summer months on the ground that it was unnecessary for health reasons as well as being costly and inefficient, was reversed this summer and before the new Governor had taken up his office;
(2) the annual cost of the transfer of the secretariat of the Government of Cyprus from Nicosia to Troodos during the summer months; and if this move is to be continued in view of the decision of the former Governor to abandon it.

Mr. Creech Jones: The matter is mainly one for the Governor's personal decision in the light of his own assessment of local administrative and public requirements. I understand that the Acting-Governor followed the usual practice this year, pending the arrival of the new Governor in August. Sir Andrew Wright is considering the matter. The annual cost of moving the secretariat is about £1,300.

Mr. Davies: May I ask my right hon. Friend two questions? Did he approve the discontinuing of this transfer, when the former Governor made his announcement? Did he approve the change made this time by the Acting-Governor?

Mr. Creech Jones: My own private view, of course, is that this long established arrangement should be discontinued, but it is a matter primarily for the Governor on the spot. I am in consultation with him.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Is it not quite a new departure for the Secretary of State for the Colonies to say that a matter is solely for the Governor to decide and then to express publicly in the House of Commons what he calls his private view on the matter?

Mr. Creech Jones: I have stated that this is primarily a matter for the Governor himself. I have also expressed to the Governor my own private views in regard to it.

Mr. Vane: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that £1,300 is a very small price to pay for moving the Governor and his staff from Nicosia, which is an extremely unhealthy place in the summer, to a place where they can obviously work very much better?

Oral Answers to Questions — TOGOLAND (EDUCATION)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the estimated number of literates in British Togoland; how many are now, child and adult, receiving education, respectively; and what plans exist for future educational development.

Mr. Creech Jones: It is estimated that about 30 per cent. of the population is literate; 25,792 children were attending school last year. I have no figures for the numbers receiving adult education. Education is being developed as fast as funds and staff permit; 13.6 per cent. of the total expenditure of the Territory in 1948 was on education, and, as I have previously informed my hon. Friend, Togoland is already heavily subsidised by the Gold Coast.

Mr. Sorensen: Do the figures which my right hon. Friend has given compare favourably with those of nearby British Colonies?

Mr. Creech Jones: I think so. Togo-land stands to gain from the broad developments in the Gold Coast, for which, under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act, quite a large sum has been allocated.

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGERIA (GROUNDNUTS)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the estimated present production of groundnuts in Nigeria; to what extent is transport of groundnuts to the coast now meeting the need; and what improved methods of production have been adopted during the past year.

Mr. Creech Jones: Purchases for export from the 1948–49 crop amounted to 328,000 tons. It is too early to give any figure of the quantity which will be available from the 1949–50 crop, but it is thought that the quantity will be less than this. Monthly railings of groundnuts have increased from about 23,000 tons in April to about 40,000 in October. During the 1948–49 season, groundnuts of improved strains were distributed for sowing, and artificial fertilisers were introduced.

Mr. Sorensen: Has my right hon. Friend really answered the second part


of my Question, regarding transport? He knows that there was some difficulty in the past. Is that being overcome now?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, Sir. I have pointed out that, since April, railings have increased from 23,000 tons to 40,000 tons a month, and right throughout the period there has been a very marked increase in the amount carried by transport.

Mr. Sorensen: Does that mean that there are no great stacks now in Northern Nigeria?

Mr. Creech Jones: It means that the pyramids which were there are being rapidly reduced.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Did the auditors approve the accounts without comment?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY

Anti-submarine Frigate

Sir Ronald Ross: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what progress has been made towards the design of a type of frigate adequate for the performance of anti-submarine operations under present conditions.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Walter Edwards): The design of a new anti-submarine frigate has been completed and it is hoped to lay down the first of its class this financial year.

Sir R. Ross: Will the matter be treated as one of urgency?

Commander Noble: How many conversions for this purpose have been made?

Mr. Edwards: The hon. Member will have to put that question on the paper.

Married Quarters, Home Ports

Sir R. Ross: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what progress has been made with the provision of married quarters to ranks and ratings at the home ports.

Mr. W. Edwards: It is not Admiralty policy to build married quarters at the home ports. Priority is being given to building quarters at isolated naval establishments where there is little or no chance of naval personnel obtaining

accommodation through the local authorities.

Sir R. Ross: Has the Civil Lord found very unsatisfactory conditions in the married quarters in the home ports, in view of the great effect that this matter has on recruiting and upon retaining in the Service those who might otherwise leave it?

Mr. Edwards: I cannot agree with either of the points mentioned by the hon. Member.

Mr. Medland: Can the Civil Lord inform the House when he proposes to implement the undertaking which he gave in his speech on the Estimates with reference to the Royal Devonport Naval Barracks?

Mr. Edwards: That is an altogether different question from married quarters.

Commander Maitland: Does the Civil Lord's statement mean that such married quarters as exist at present in the home ports will be abolished?

Mr. Edwards: No, Sir.

Merchant Ship Repairs, Malta

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty how far it is now possible to repair merchant ships in Malta.

Mr. W. Edwards: Facilities at Malta have for some time been available for the repair of merchant ships, and any such work within the dry dock capacity of the dockyard will be welcome.

Major Legge-Bourke: Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that any ships which the Maltese may have bought for themselves in order to facilitate emigration will be repaired, if repairs are necessary?

Mr. Edwards: We shall consider every application made for the use of the dockyard for merchant ship repairs.

Hulk "Implacable"

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware of the strong desire in France for the return to that country of the "Implacable," as the only ship in the


world having lasted 160 years; and if he will reconsider his decision in order to meet this desire.

Mr. W. Edwards: Before the decision to sink this vessel was reached, it had been ascertained that no other proposal, involving the towage of the hulk elsewhere, would be practicable, owing to the grave risk of its foundering in circumstances which would make it a danger to navigation.
During the past twelve months there have been many suggestions from France for taking over the hulk, none of which was pursued when the physical difficulties were explained. The Admiralty is at present in correspondence with the French Naval Attaché in London about French representation at the sinking of the vessel, and the offer of a commemorative relic to the French Government.
I would like to take this opportunity of announcing that although it was originally intended to carry out the sinking off the Channel Islands, we have found that the state of the ship renders this impossible. She will be sunk as near to Portsmouth as practicable.

Oral Answers to Questions — TELEVISION

Advisory Committee (Reconstitution)

Mr. Erroll: asked the Postmaster-General to what extent industry is represented on the Television Advisory Committee; and how he ensures that all radio manufacturers are kept informed of policy decisions on television made by his Department.

The Postmaster-General (Mr. Wilfred Paling): In view of the appointment of the Broadcasting Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Beveridge, to consider the wider aspects of broadcasting, including television, the Television Advisory Committee has recently been reconstituted, and its terms of reference are now:
to advise the Postmaster-General on current development problems of the B.B.C.'s television service.
The members of the reconstituted Committee include Sir William Coates (who is deputy-chairman of Imperial

Chemical Industries, Ltd.), and Mr. I. A. R. Stedeford, the chairman of Tube Investments, Ltd., as well as Mr. J. A. Ratcliffe of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, with senior officials of the Treasury and the Post Office and the Director-General of the B.B.C. Of the independent members of this Committee, none of whom has been appointed to represent any sectional interest, two have wide experience in industry.
The Committee has, on a number of occasions, met representatives of the Radio Industry Council and will be meeting them again this week.

Mr. Erroll: Will the Postmaster-General ask the Committee to pay special attention to the importance of seeing that the radio industry itself is informed of the decisions which the Committee takes?

Mr. Paling: I think one can be pretty sure that it will do that.

Mr. Marples: As the policy of this Committee cannot really be framed without knowing the manufacturing capacity of the industry itself, would it not be prudent and advisable to have the industry directly represented on the Committee?

Mr. Paling: If it wants that information I suppose it will ask for it.

Wales

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Postmaster-General whether he can now state when television will be made available in Wales.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I am sorry that I am unable to give a date at present.

Mr. Freeman: Can my right hon. Friend say whether a site for the main distributing station in South Wales has been settled, and, if not, when it will be decided?

Mr. Paling: Suitable sites have been explored.

Economy Measures

Mr. Symonds: asked the Postmaster-General if the economies in capital expenditure to be made by his Department involve any reduction in expenditure on the development of the television service.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: The Post Office expenditure is confined to the provision of the programme links which will connect the B.B.C. television stations. In this connection I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to the hon. and gallant Member for Glasgow, Central (Colonel Hutchison) on 31st October.

Mr. Symonds: In any economies which my right hon. Friend is contemplating, will he make quite sure that this particular service, at any rate, is not affected, because economies in this direction would only ultimately have the effect of severely handicapping the export trade?

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Staff Associations (Recognition)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Postmaster-General whether he has considered the application submitted to him on 8th October, 1949, by the Engineering Officers (Telecommunication) Association; and whether, in view of the fact that the membership of this association exceeds 40 per cent. of the total of organised staff in the technical officers grade, he proposes to grant recognition to this association.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: When this Association's earlier claim for recognition was rejected on 27th August last, they were informed that the matter would be reconsidered in the light of membership figures at the end of the year, assuming that in the meantime there was no change in the principle on which claims for recognition were considered. I am at present reviewing the basis on which recognition by the Post Office should be given to new staff associations and pending a conclusion of that review I regret I am not in a position to take a decision on the present claim.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the claim of the association referred to in my Question establishes that they now number 40 per cent. of the organised members of this grade, and has not that figure previously been treated as entitling anybody to recognition?

Mr. Paling: They have made a claim to that extent, but with regard to the

figures only, I must examine the claim of the other union also.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Inasmuch as the existing rules governing recognition, in which the 40 per cent. level figures, have operated very satisfactorily for a very large number of years in the Post Office, can the Postmaster-General tell us what Le has in mind in saying that he is contemplating a revision of those rules?

Mr. Paling: The question of the multiplicity of unions brings in its train difficulties for the Post Office itself also, and I should like to examine the question in the light of the difficulties.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: At all events, will the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that his review is not being undertaken for the exclusion on political grounds of a union whose basis of membership is otherwise adequate for recognition?

Mr. Paling: I am undertaking this review in the interests of the Post Office generally and of the men themselves.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is it not a fact that this organisation now numbers 40 per cent. of the members in the grade, and that the rule granting recognition in such cases is still in effect? On those two assumptions, can the right hon. Gentleman say why recognition is now refused, even if the matter is to be reviewed again?

Mr. Gallacher: It is not a Communist union.

Mr. Paling: I have already said that the union has made a claim. At the moment I am not disputing their figures—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman is not?

Mr. Paling: —but I must have regard to the figures submitted by the other union also.

Temporary Postmen, Southend-on-Sea

Mr. Channon: asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that eight temporary postmen employed at the Southend-on-Sea Post Office have been warned that they are to receive notice terminating their employment, as the Post


Office have orders to cut down their staff; to what extent these temporary postmen have had to work overtime in view of the amount of work to be undertaken; and how the work is to be carried out without the extra help especially in view of the near advent of the Christmas season.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: Six temporary postmen at Southend-on-Sea, who have been employed on account of seasonal work and other temporary causes, were recently advised informally of the possible termination of their employment. One, an ex-Regular Service man, is now under consideration for a permanent appointment and work will be available for the others until after Christmas. Four of the temporary postmen have performed overtime during the past four weeks, ranging individually from three and a quarter hours to nine hours for the whole period.

Postal Services, Watchet

Mr. Bartlett: asked the Postmaster-General whether he will amend the regulations for the standardisation of postal services so that the town of Watchet, Somerset, may benefit by a later collection at night and an afternoon delivery.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: No, Sir. The postal facilities at Watchet are in line with the general standard which is governed by the need to conserve manpower, and I regret that in present circumstances I am unable to depart from it.

Mr. Bartlett: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that according to members of the local council facilities were superior in the days when the mail was taken by horse vehicle to Bridgwater, which is some 20 miles away; and has the time not come when the general facilities should be improved throughout the country?

Mr. Paling: I have already stated that it is a question of manpower.

Hon. Members: Horsepower.

Registered Letters (Non-delivery)

Mr. Bartlett: asked the Postmaster-General why an inquiry about the non-delivery of a registered letter has to be accompanied by a 3d. stamp.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: The charge is made to cover part of the cost involved in proving delivery. If the registered letter under inquiry has not been delivered the fee is returned.

Mr. Bartlett: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that last July, for example, two registered letters which I posted went astray and cost me several pounds, and that when they were finally delivered no explanation or apology of any sort was made; and surely the person who registers a letter is entitled to expect that it should be delivered and that he should not be called upon to pay for it if it is delivered late?

Mr. Paling: I am sorry that the hon. Member has had such an experience, but it quite frequently happens that the letter has been delivered and it is necessary that we should charge this fee.

Mr. Bartlett: If the letter is delivered with a delay of ten days, has the person who posted it no redress whatever?

Mr. Paling: If the hon. Member has a question of that kind he had better let me have it.

Telephone Service (Application, Hoylake)

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: asked the Postmaster-General when Nurse Jennett, of 58, Gresford Avenue, Hoylake, Cheshire will be supplied with a telephone.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I regret that no firm date can be given until consent is received for erection of the necessary pole. Discussions on this matter are proceeding with the local authority concerned and I hope that they will see their way to grant consent at an early date.

Mr. Lloyd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the controversy about this lady's telephone has been dragging on for many months and that in view of her occupation it is highly desirable that she should have a telephone quickly?

Mr. Paling: I do not think it is our fault that the matter has been dragging on. We have done our best to try to get it done.

Villages, Yorkshire (Postal Address)

Mr. Turton: asked the Postmaster-General (1) whether he is aware that the villages of Thorton Watlass,


Clifton, Thirn and Rookwith, which are in the North Riding of Yorkshire, are allotted a postal address at Ripon, which is in the West Riding of Yorkshire; that this causes confusion and inconvenience; whether he has considered the petition from the inhabitants of these villages asking for their postal address to be changed; and what action he proposes to take;
(2) whether he is aware that the villages of Gatenby, Londonderry, Leeming and Leeming Bar, which are in the vicinity of Bedale and within the area of Bedale rural district, have their postal address at Northallerton, some six miles away; that this causes confusion and inconvenience to the inhabitants of these villages; whether he has considered the petition from these villages asking that their postal address should be changed; and what action he proposes to take.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: I am aware that the postal address of each of the villages named includes the name of a post town which is some distance away, but I am satisfied that this arrangement ensures the best postal service, while the alteration proposed would provide a less efficient service which would be wasteful of manpower. I have given careful consideration to the petitions addressed to me by certain residents in these villages but, for the reasons which have been communicated to the hon. Member by letter, I should not be justified in authorising the proposed change of postal address.

Mr. Turton: Does the Minister derive satisfaction from the fact that not only all the local authorities, but the majority of the inhabitants also, have made the request contained in my Question; and on whom does he rely for his local knowledge when such great inconvenience is caused by having to include in postal addresses the name of a town in a different part of the country to that in which the village is situated?

Mr. Paling: The Post Office have a lot of experience in handling mail and know a great deal about it.

Sir R. Ross: Will the Postmaster-General always give particular attention to the needs of Londonderry wherever it may be?

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES

Atomic Weapons

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Minister of Defence what instructions have been given to the British Joint Services Mission to the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff Board in Washington, consequent upon the official announcement that the Soviet Union had discovered the secret of the atomic weapon and that it had this weapon at its disposal.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander): It would be contrary to policy to disclose confidential Government communications.

Mr. Platts-Mills: May I ask a supplementary question which indicates that some of these matters can be dealt with publicly? Will the right hon. Gentleman now withdraw the British Joint Services Mission and make it quite clear to the Americans that we are contracting out of their vile war plans, bearing in mind that we shall be at the receiving end for atom bombs from all quarters once another war starts?

Mr. Alexander: It might be as well on a question like that to adopt the answer Mr. Vishinsky made the other day:
The Soviet Government does not announce in advance what it will do.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of what happened at the weekend, are proper arrangements being made to ensure the defence of the Minister of Defence when he goes to Sheffield?

Mr. Alexander: I am quite capable of looking after myself.

Economy Measures

Mr. A. R. W. Low: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will now state, the allocation between the three Service Departments and the Ministry of Supply of the £12,500,000 savings to be made on the current year's expenditure.

Mr. Alexander: It is too early in the financial year to evaluate precisely each of the many measures of which the estimated saving of £12½ million will be the cumulative effect. Whilst I can say that the Army and Air Force votes will make the major contributions, it is not possible at this stage to give precise figures, but


the overall saving from the expenditure which would have been incurred in the financial year by the three Service Departments will be at least £12½ million.

Mr. Low: How does the right hon. Gentleman know that, unless he has some idea of what each Service Department will save?

Mr. Alexander: I said that I cannot give precise figures, but I can say at this stage that the larger part will be borne by the Army and the Air Force Votes.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman handicapped by a shortage of chartered accountants in these Services, and if he is, will he borrow some from the Ministry of Health and the Scottish Office?

Mr. Alexander: Chartered accountants can usually be precise on figures which have already been spent, but they cannot be so precise on estimates.

Mr. Peter Thorneycroft: Does it not show very sad neglect of their duties for the Government to propose cuts in the Estimates for the Defence Forces if they have no idea how much each of the Services will be affected?

Mr. Alexander: That is not the position. If the hon. Gentleman will read my answer tomorrow morning, he will see that that is not the position.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: asked the Minister of Defence if the promised review of the Defence Services in the interests of economy has yet proceeded far enough for him to be able to announce the economies proposed in the future operation of the National Service scheme.

Mr. Alexander: As I informed the House in reply to the Question last Wednesday by the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), National Service remains an essential feature of our defence policy, though we shall continue to keep its practical working under close review to ensure that it meets the needs of the Services as efficiently as possible. I have nothing of substance to add to this except to say that recent speculation in the Press as to major changes in the present scheme of National Service is not well founded.

Mr. Frank Byers: Will the Minister say that the Government have definitely no intention of introducing the selective ballot?

Mr. Alexander: I have nothing to add to my answer.

Mr. Chetwynd: Will my right hon. Friend reject the idea of a selective ballot because of the great discontent it would arouse?

Major Legge-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that if any change is intended in the present system he will make an announcement to the House before that change is put into operation?

Mr. Alexander: The House of Commons is the ultimate controller of policy of this kind, and at the proper time whatever recommendations the Government may have to make will be laid before the House.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Can the Minister give the House an assurance that whatever is the outcome of this review, it will be communicated to the House in the form of a White Paper in good time to enable adequate discussion to take place in this House at the earliest moment?

Mr. Alexander: There is bound to be a White Paper on Defence and hon. Members will get that in adequate time.

Mr. Yates: Do I understand from the right hon. Gentleman that the scheme of National Service will not be reviewed? I understood from the Prime Minister that this was to be included in a general review of the Services?

Mr. Alexander: The Prime Minister did not say that. My right hon. Friend said that it would be wrong for the questions referred to the Inter-Services Inquiry to be prejudiced by decisions taken to meet the immediate pressure for economy,

Food and Oil (Dollar Expenditure)

Mr. Ronald Chamberlain: asked the Minister of Defence what was the dollar expenditure on food and oil on behalf of the Defence Services for the first half


of 1949; and what is the estimated expenditure on these items for the second half of the year.

Mr. Alexander: Part of the food for the Defence Services is supplied direct to the Forces overseas and part is included in the United Kingdom import programme. Dollar expenditure on the former category accounted for approximately half the sums quoted in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Swingler) on 26th October. The records of the dollar cost of the United Kingdom import programme do not distinguish that part representing food to be consumed by the Forces but my hon. Friend will realise that the total dollar expenditure on food for the United Kingdom is not affected by whether or not a proportion of those fed are in uniform.
Oil is obtained from both dollar and sterling sources, and sterling companies incur dollar expenditure. For these reasons it is difficult to allocate dollar expenditure accurately between civil and military users. However, provisionally £2 million could be taken as the Services' share of direct dollar expenditure on oil in the first half of 1949. The Services' share in the second half of 1949 is estimated provisionally at slightly less than £2 million. These figures have not been adjusted to take account of the dollar production costs by sterling companies.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Meat

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Food what increases he proposes to make in the price of meat.

The Minister of Food (Mr. Strachey): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for Eastern Norfolk (Brigadier Medlicott) on 31st October.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, arising out of that semi-audible answer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] In deference to hon. Members opposite I withdraw the "semi." Can the right hon. Gentleman now give an assurance that there will be no increase in the price of meat before the general election?

Mr. Strachey: I have nothing to add to my former answer.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that the London area has received a smaller proportion of meat offal than the rest of the country during the last few weeks; and what steps he is taking to correct this disproportion.

Mr. Strachey: Yes, Sir. The diversion of home-killed meat and offal from London during the recent difficulties at Smithfield resulted in the proportion of offal issued in London being less than the proportion issued in the rest of the country, but the loss to the London consumer will be made up.

Commander Noble: asked the Minister of Food what quantity of meat is stored in the five refrigerated ships held by his Department at a monthly cost of £56,668.

Mr. Strachey: Eighteen thousand tons.

Commander Noble: Could the Minister say how long he thinks this large expenditure will go on?

Mr. Strachey: It depends on the rate of home killings and the rate of arrivals from overseas. The home killings, unfortunately, will fall off at the end of the year.

Mr. Hogg: Does the use of ships for this purpose at all reduce the capacity of the transport into this country?

Mr. Strachey: Yes, but I am glad to say that we have no shortage of refrigerated tonnage to bring us meat at the moment.

Mr. Baldwin: Is it not time that the distribution of meat was put through the normal channels of pre-war days when it was never necessary to have this expensive method of storage?

Sir David Robertson: Is it not a fact that this marine storage costs at least five times as much as storage in land stores?

Mr. Strachey: No, it is not as high an addition as that.

Sir D. Robertson: Can the Minister state how much per ton his Department pays for meat storage on land?

Mr. Strachey: The figures are 27s. on land and 62s. 6d. in these ships.

Catering Establishments (Ration Cards)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Minister of Food if he is prepared to reconsider the present arrangement under which hotels and boarding houses providing bed and breakfast only are entitled to take the complete food ration card of their residents even although they are under no obligation to provide them with the quantities of food which the ration card allows.

Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. Catering establishments obtain their allowances of rationed foods on the basis of the number of meals served and not by means of the ration books surrendered by residents.

Mr. Gammans: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise the hardship which that causes, especially to students living in hostels, who take some of their meals over the weekend either with their relations or with their friends?

Mr. Strachey: If they live in catering establishments, the catering establishment has its full allowance of food per meal served, and they are provided for in that way.

Mr. Gammans: But do they not take the ration books?

Mr. Strachey: Yes, otherwise the residents in the catering establishments would get double rations.

Christmas Rations

Air-Commodore Harvey: asked the Minister of Food if he will increase the ration of tea, sugar, meat and fats for Christmas week.

Mr. Strachey: I hope to make a statement in due course.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Why does not the right hon. Gentleman follow the example of the Netherlands which is today taking all its foodstuffs, except one, off the ration?

Mr. Strachey: That could easily be done, of course, if the price of foodstuffs was allowed to find its commercial level.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Would my right hon. Friend care to ask the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition whether it

would be the policy of the party opposite to follow the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member?

Air-Commodore Harvey: asked the Minister of Food if he will make a statement on the supply of poultry which will be available this Christmas, giving a comparison with last year; and on what basis it will be allocated to retailers.

Mr. Strachey: It is too early to be precise but, so far as we can see at present, there should be rather more turkeys this Christmas than last and appreciably more of other types of poultry. We are still working out, together with the Association of Wholesale Distributors of Imported Poultry and Rabbits, Limited, the best way of distributing imported supplies this Christmas. There is no control over the distribution of home-produced poultry.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Is it not time the right hon. Gentleman got these facts together, and will he ensure that there is no repetition of what happened last year when much of the poultry and foodstuffs arrived after Christmas?

Mr. Nally: Will my right hon. Friend take precisely the same precautions to ensure that what has happened in the London area every year since 1945, whereby a number of leading hotels were buying their poultry on the black market, will not occur this year?

Mr. Strachey: I am glad to say that the price of poultry has been below, not above, the official price during recent weeks.

Milk (Northern Ireland)

Sir Ronald Ross: asked the Minister of Food how much liquid milk has been provided this year by Northern Ireland; and how much has been imported from the Irish Republic up to the latest convenient date.

Mr. Strachey: Up to 22nd October, 3,141,357 gallons of milk have been imported from Northern Ireland into Great Britain this year. No liquid milk has been imported from the Irish Republic.

Sir R. Ross: Is not that quite a contrast?

Algerian Wine

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Food what was the cost of his Algerian wine, including transport and storage; in what currency was payment made; to whom was the wine sold; in what currency was payment received; and what was the net result of these transactions expressed in sterling.

Mr. Strachey: Contracts for the purchase of Algerian wine were made partly in francs and partly in sterling, and the contract for the sale of the balance of our stocks to the German wine trade was in sterling. I am not prepared to disclose at this stage either the buying or selling prices. As I have said before, I expect to show a small profit on our transactions in wine.

Sir J. Mellor: Did this small profit justify the considerable sacrifice of foreign exchange?

Mr. Strachey: No, Sir, the hon. Member is completely mistaken. There was no sacrifice whatever of foreign exchange.

Sir J. Mellor: There was a net profit?

Mr. Strachey: Yes, there was a net profit. The purchases were made in francs—one of the softest currencies—and in sterling, and the sales were made in sterling. What possible sacrifice of foreign exchange could there be?

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: Whilst reluctant to press the right hon. Gentleman, since he has other things on his mind today, will he tell us at what stage he can give the price?

Mr. Strachey: I cannot be committed to giving a price in individual transactions, for the reasons which I have repeatedly given to the House.

Mr. Hogg: Pending the House receiving the information, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake that the most careful accounts will be kept?

Italian Pears (Imports)

Mr. Bossom: asked the Minister of Food why, when the British farmers have produced a good crop of pears, he permitted the import of Italian pears into this country of approximately three times the amount mentioned in the Imports Agreement with Italy this year.

Mr. Strachey: The hon. Member is, I am afraid, under a misapprehension, for pears are not separately specified in this year's Anglo-Italian Trade Agreement. I see no reason to exclude these imports of pears. Home production is far from adequate to meet the demand.

Mr. Bossom: Does not the Minister recognise that he allowed an almost unlimited or uncontrolled number of pears to be imported this year and that that seriously interfered with our own farmers? Is not that a most unbusinesslike arrangement?

Mr. Strachey: The position is that we produce about half the number of pears consumed in this country. Since 5th October pears come in under the Liberalisation of European Trade proposals on open general licence and are not, therefore, under my control.

Mr. Turton: Before the Minister allowed these large imports of pears, amounting this year to £4½ million, did he consult the Minister of Agriculture?

Mr. Strachey: That figure is not correct, but refers to fruit in general and not to pears alone. I repeat the statement, which the hon. Member does not seem to have taken in, that pears are now on open general licence.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN BROADCASTS

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Postmaster-General (1) how many regular broadcasts are run by the British Broadcasting Corporation to foreign countries in their respective languages; how many have been opened since 1945; what is the cost of each and what proportion of these costs are borne by the countries concerned;
(2) what are the wavelengths of the transmissions broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation to foreign countries; how many of the programmes are receivable in the United Kingdom; and to what extent translations of the programmes are available in English.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: The B.B.C. broadcasts regularly to 34 foreign countries in their respective languages, apart from broadcasts to countries of the Commonwealth. Two such services—namely, to Russia and to Israel, have been started since 1945. The Corporation is unable


to give the costs of the transmissions to each country separately because there is a large element of common service; some of the programmes can be received in more than one country simultaneously. None of the cost is borne by any foreign country.
Most of the B.B.C.'s broadcasts to foreign countries are on short wavelengths of which 60 are used; these can be received regularly in the United Kingdom only by persons near to the transmitters. One long wavelength, 1,796 metres, and one medium wavelength, 267 metres, are, however, used for broadcasts from the United Kingdom to European countries; and in addition, B.B.C. programmes to European countries are relayed on 456 metres from Norden in Germany, and on 338 metres from Graz Dobl in Austria. The long wavelength can be received in most parts of the United Kingdom, and one at least of the medium wavelengths can be heard in most parts of England during the hours of darkness.
It is not possible, without undue expense in staff and money, to provide translations of all of the programmes for the general public; but as far as possible the B.B.C. complies with particular requests by responsible persons or authorities for the texts of specific programmes.

Major Legge-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman say why, if he thinks that translations of these programmes are an undue expense, it was justified to start a new programme on Sunday to Israel, and would he say what expenses were involved and what justification there is for it in view of the present need for economy?

Mr. Paling: I cannot add to my answer without notice.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the value and prestige of the overseas programmes of the B.B.C. are out of all proportion to their cost, and will he give an assurance that there will be no slashing economies in foreign language broadcasts?

Mr. Paling: Most people agree that they are valuable.

Major Legge-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to allow translations of talks to be made available to Members of this House if requested?

Mr. Paling: I should like to look into that.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE (JET FIGHTER AIRCRAFT)

Mr. Donner: asked the Secretary of State for Air what percentage of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force is still using Spitfires; and what percentage will be equipped with jet fighter aircraft by 31st December, 1949.

The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Arthur Henderson): Eighty per cent. of Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons are using Spitfires. On present plans 35 per cent. of the squadrons will be equipped with jet fighter aircraft by 31st December, 1949.

Mr. Donner: Would the right hon. Gentleman say why jet fighters are exported to foreign countries while our own young men are expected, in the event of war, to fight in out-of-date machines?

Mr. Henderson: It is not for me to say why jet fighters are exported to other countries. That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply. The export of these aircraft, however, has not limited the supply of jet machines to the Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons.

Mr. Donner: Surely the right hon. Gentleman would agree that his first duty is to ensure that our own Air Forces have up-to-date aircraft?

Mr. Henderson: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that we have had not only to re-equip the auxiliary squadrons but also to re-equip the fighter squadrons. We have re-equipped all squadrons of Fighter Command and all ground attack squadrons in the Middle East and B.A.F.O. In fact, all fighter squadrons of the Regular Air Force will be re-equipped by the end of this year. So far as the auxiliary squadrons are concerned, as I said in my reply, 35 per cent. will be re-equipped by the end of this year. We are phasing the re-equipment of the remaining squadrons during next year and hope to complete it by early 1951.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Does the Secretary of State for Air recall that his Under-Secretary said that the re-equipment of auxiliary squadrons would have taken place a year ago, and why are we so far behind?

Mr. Henderson: I would like to see that statement, because it is certainly a statement of which I am unaware and it does not fit in with the facts of the position.

"QUISLING" (MR. SPEAKER'S RULING)

Mr. Austin: I wish to raise a point of Order on which I seek your guidance and advice, Mr. Speaker. During the Debate last night on the Clothing Industry Development Council two hon. Members opposite referred to a minority of employers in the industry who were prepared to co-operate with the Government as "Quislings." When we get a full interpretation of the word we find that it is a term of opprobrium and contempt and means "traitor." May I ask for your Ruling whether honest and decent public-minded citizens, whoever they may be, are to be protected from the use of such terms? With a view to informing the hon. Members concerned, in order that they may be in their places tomorrow, may I ask whether you will be kind enough to give your Ruling tomorrow?

Mr. Speaker: I understand the hon. Member gave notice about the word "Quisling" used in the Debate last night and I am prepared to give a Ruling because it was used twice. If the hon. Member is referring to the phrase of the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Shephard) which appears in column 322 of yesterday's HANSARD, there is nothing unparliamentary in that. It did not refer to any individual in this House and, although it may not be a pleasant expression, it is not out of Order. As the word "Quisling" was not applied to any particular individual it is, therefore, not out of Order. If complaint is made of the interjection by the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Attewell), which also appears in column 322, the word "Quisling" was applied to the whole of the Opposition and is an offensive epithet which may not be desirable in our debates but, unless it is applied directly to an individual, or to particular persons, the Chair would not necessarily order its withdrawal.

Mr. Austin: I wish to thank you, Sir, for your Ruling;but may I point out that all persons who reside in this country are involved in the Constitution and accept

constitutional rights and ought to be free from any such taint as implied by that epithet.

Mr. Speaker: I have nothing to add to what I have said already.

Mr. Gallacher: May I ask, Sir, if, in view of your Ruling, you will consider this. As this Gentleman, Mr. Quisling, was a Commander of the British Empire, would not the application of "Quisling" therefore be limited?

Mr. Speaker: I think we had better get on.

Mr. Nally: On a point of Order. I have in my locker a speech delivered by a distinguished member of the party opposite in which he referred to those persons who had taken office and were members of boards or directorates of nationalised industries and who had gone from private enterprise to those boards in quite specific terms. He said that anyone who leaves private enterprise to go to a nationalised undertaking constitutes a "Quisling." I would like to ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. Are we to assume that where the word "Quisling" is used in this House in such a way as clearly to identify a group of people, a small group of people, it will be out of Order?

Mr. Speaker: On the Debate of last night I have given my Ruling on the word "Quisling." It may be an offensive word, but is not out of Order and therefore that is my Ruling.

BILL PRESENTED

CHARITY OF WALTER STANLEY IN WEST BROMWICH BILL

"to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the Charity of Walter Stanley, in the Ancient Parish of West Bromwich, in the County of Stafford," presented by Mr. Philips Price; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 195.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings in Committee on Local Government Boundary Commission (Dissolution) [Money] exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

Orders of the Day — LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY COMMISSION (DISSOLUTION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.37 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill, which repeals the Local Government (Boundary Commission) Act, 1945, and winds up the Commission, is a logical and inevitable sequel to the findings of the Commission themselves as published in their reports and it casts no reflection whatever on the Commission, or on its work. The Act of 1945, which was passed during the period of office of the Coalition Government, established the Commission and gave them the duty of reviewing the circumstances of the areas into which England and Wales, other than London, are divided for the purposes of local government. The Act gave them very wide powers of altering local government areas. For example, they could increase or reduce counties, county boroughs or county districts. They could unite county with county, or county borough with county borough. Those were major tasks and not merely minor adjustments.
The Act of 1945 was silent, and intentionally so, about the functions of local authorities. It was not the purpose of the Coalition Government of that day in that Act to give any power to the Commission to re-allocate functions to different classes of authority and, indeed, the Commission soon discovered that the exclusion of any consideration of functions crippled their work and that any examination of boundaries alone was not likely to give any worthwhile results. Indeed, the Commission stated in their report for 1947 that they had
come to the definite conclusion that effective and convenient units of local government administration cannot everywhere be procured (and this is our primary task) without a fresh allocation of functions amongst the various types of local authorities, particularly where the larger towns are concerned.
Although the Commission recognised that they had no mandate to deal with the functions of local authorities, they decided, and my right hon. Friend encouraged them to do so, to set out in their

1947 report an analysis of the position with their recommendations for alterations, whether or not these were within their jurisdiction, and to ask either that fresh legislation should be enacted, or that they should be instructed to proceed on the existing unsatisfactory basis.
The Commission recommended, first, that England and Wales should be divided into one-tier and two-tier new counties, the one-tier counties being the largest of the existing county boroughs. Secondly, they recommended the creation of and allocation of functions to a new class of authority—the new county borough—which was to be a "most purpose" authority which would still be within the county for a few important services to be administered by the county council. Thirdly, they proposed the assimilation of the functions of county districts; and, finally, they proposed the preparation of schemes of delegation of functions in the two-tier counties.
In effect, therefore, the Commission said that the task given to them was unrealistic and not worth while, and they made far-reaching recommendations for the amendment of the law in relation to the status and functions of local authorities. My right hon. Friend expressed the Government's attitude to those recommendations in reply to a Question in the House on 8th April, 1948, the date of publication of the Commission's report. He then said that the Government would consider the report, which raised far reaching considerations clearly requiring the fullest and widest discussion by all interested parties before final decisions were taken, and he commended the report to the study of the House, of the public and particularly of local authorities.
My right hon. Friend had hoped that with the issue of the report there might have emerged a strong body of opinion amongst all classes of local authorities either in support of the recommendations of the Commission or in support of some alternative proposals. This has not occurred. On the contrary, views as to the structure and functions of local government differ not only from class to class of local authority, but even within each separate class of local authority. The Government are themselves reviewing the structure and functions of local government, but there is no prospect of


legislation on this subject during the present Parliament.
The Government agree with the Commission that it is unrealistic to think of altering local government boundaries without at the same time considering the adaptation of functions to the different types of authorities. The position has arisen that in the absence of a power to the Commission of allocating functions, they are charged with the duty to do what is in their own view not worth while. The Government have felt, therefore, that in the circumstances they cannot ask them to continue with what could only be a makeshift policy.
The Bill itself is a very simple Measure containing only one operative Clause and a Schedule. The Clause dissolves the Boundary Commission, repeals the Act of 1945 by which it was established, and restores the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1933, relating to alterations of local government areas which had been repealed by the Act of 1945. The Schedule to the Bill sets out the way in which, in restoring some of the repealed provisions, it is proposed to amend them. It would be more suitable if detailed consideration of the Schedule was undertaken during the Committee stage, but it might be worth while if I now said something in general about the items in the Schedule.
Paragraph 1 of the Schedule proposes to retain the population limit of the 1945 Act below which a borough may not promote a Bill to be constituted a county borough. Paragraph 2 of the Schedule substitutes special procedure orders for provisional orders in Section 140 of the 1933 Act. This in effect means that the simplified procedure of the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, which applied to the Boundary Commission orders, shall be retained for certain alterations to be made by order of the Minister on proposals made either by a county council or a borough council. Paragraph 5 makes similar amendment with regard to provisional orders under Section 146 of the 1933 Act.
Both paragraph 3 and paragraph 4 of the Schedule propose much the same kind of amendment. Section 143 of the Local Government Act, 1933, enables adjustments of county boundaries to be made where a county district or parish is not Wholly contained within one county or

where part of a county is detached. Effect can be given to appropriate adjustments by order of the Minister on joint representations by the county councils concerned. In restoring this provision it is proposed that no action shall be taken under it before the end of 1951. Paragraph 4 of the Schedule proposes a similar limitation of time on proposals for further reviews of counties by county councils under Section 146 of the Act of 1933.
I should like to refer to the other means available to local authorities of securing alterations in their areas. This Dissolution Bill is restoring the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1933, which authorise changes in local government areas to be made by order of the Minister—in some cases subject to confirmation by Parliament—but certain kinds of extension cannot be made by order and must be sought by private Bill. An example is extensions of county boroughs to which there are objections. It is clear that a number of local authorities are considering promoting private Bills to secure extensions of their areas, and it would probably be helpful to them and to local authorities generally if the Government's attitude were stated.
It will be remembered that when my right hon. Friend announced the Government's intention of winding up the Boundary Commission, he said that the repeal of the Local Government (Boundary Commission) Act would restore the position substantially to what it was before the passing of that Act, until such time as the Government have had an opportunity of reviewing the structure and functions of local government. That review is now taking place, and it is the Government's desire that for the time being as few changes as possible should be proposed or take place in the existing areas and status of local authorities, since obviously any such changes might well have to be undone, if indeed they could take effect within the time available, when the Government come to announce their proposals.
Some changes may, however, be urgently necessary and ought not to be postponed; for example, where an authority urgently needs extra land for the continuation of its housing programme and cannot obtain the land required except outside its own boundaries. In such cases the Government would not


oppose strictly limited extensions, but where real and immediate urgency cannot be shown, the Government would feel bound to take such steps as are open to them to secure the rejection of such proposals by Parliament. It is to be hoped, therefore, that local authorities will give very careful consideration before embarking on legislation which may be both costly and abortive.
In conclusion, I should like to pay a sincere tribute to the Commission and their staff for the work which they have done in tackling what has been not only a difficult but has proved to be an impossible task. Whatever decision may be taken as to the ultimate shape of local government, the information they have gathered will unquestionably be invaluable to us all.

3.50 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The Parliamentary Secretary has had a difficult task, in my opinion, in seeking to defend and to justify the decision of the right hon. Gentleman to wind up this Commission. I should like to congratulate him on the very skilful manner in which he sought to present a thin case. The task that has fallen on his shoulders has only done so because, like that "celebrated, cultivated, under-rated nobleman," the Duke of Plaza-Toro, the right hon. Gentleman prefers to lead his regiment from the rear. It is the safest position for him to adopt today. He will have the last word. No doubt that has its attractions today, but I hope that in winding up this Debate he will find it possible to say at least as much about this Bill as he did on the subject of devaluation.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I decided it would be wise to wind up the Debate instead of opening it so that I might have the opportunity of allaying the anxieties which might arise on the other side of the House.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: We shall be able to judge whether our anxieties are allayed by the answer which the right hon. Gentleman makes, but I am glad to hear that he has turned over a new leaf.
We on this side of the House regret and deplore his decision. We do not think it is justified and indeed we feel it will have serious consequences. We do not regard it as the logical sequel to the

report of the Commission. The hon. Gentleman said that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Commission to carry on. That impossibility is not revealed in any of their reports which I have read, and I think it is important that in considering this Bill the House should bear in mind the particular tasks which this Local Government Boundary Commission was set up to perform.
First of all, in 1945, in the days of the Coalition Government, a White Paper was produced. It was an interesting document, presented in January of 1945, showing the intentions which lay behind the setting-up of this Commission. Shortly, the Commission was intended to achieve two objects. One was to secure that all proposals for adjustments, whether of boundaries of counties and county boroughs or of county districts, should be examined by a single body, instead of the county council review under the Local Government Act of 1929 going on at the same time as Bills for extending county boroughs. It was said in that White Paper, with great accuracy, that a county council might well find itself under a duty to recast the local government units in its county while under the immediate threat of having the county itself dismembered; or at best, no assurance that the county would remain intact.
The second object was to provide machinery commanding public confidence and working smoothly and expeditiously and reducing to a minimum the cost of making the adjustment which had been—as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree—all too high in the past. That White Paper was adopted by this House on 15th February and as the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) said on that occasion, it met with praise from all parties. The right hon. Gentleman himself did not on that occasion strike a discordant note. He did not say then, nor did the spokesmen of his party, the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Arthur Greenwood) and the Lord President, that it was nonsense to talk about functions and boundaries separately and that they have to be taken together.
On the contrary, in that Debate there was no reference to functions. It was clear that it was accepted on all sides that the primary object of this Boundary Commission was to iron out minor adjustments of boundaries to meet the urgent


needs which were then, in 1945, existing. As the right hon. Member for Wakefield said in that Debate:
Changes there must be, Certain changes, in my view, are already overdue, and I would like to see the discussion of these questions taken outside this building and outside Private Bill Committees."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 15th February, 1945; Vol. 408, c. 435.]
That was then the position. This Bill was introduced and its Preamble recited first of all that its purpose was: to establish the Local Government Boundary Commission and then:
to make further provision for the alteration of local government areas … exclusive of London.
There was nothing in that Title dealing with functions. It was debated in the days of the Coalition Government and the then Minister of Health made it quite clear that the proposals in the Bill setting up this Commission did not purport to effect radical changes in our local government system. There was no Division on this Bill; there was no opposition to it. Again the voice of the Minister of Health was not heard.
Indeed, the only note of criticism which was struck was struck by the Minister of Town and Country Planning. He pointed out, with some force, that this was a machinery Bill, and its value would depend—and he was clearly right—upon the guidance given by the Minister of Health under the power conferred on him by the Bill. That guidance was given in November, 1945, by the right hon. Gentleman, and that has been the guidance, I think I am right in saying, the only guidance given to this Commission since it was set up. It might be convenient if I reminded the House of the terms of that guidance. It was said in the Statutory Rule and Order:
The object of all alterations in the Statute and of all alterations in the boundaries of local and Government areas is to ensure individually and collectively effective and convenient units of local government administration. This object is the governing principle by which the Commission are to be guided in exercising their functions under the Act.
When the 1946 report of the Boundary Commission was published, and that did not happen until April, 1947, it became apparent that there were three rather minor points, having regard to the 1947 report, which were creating difficulties for the Commission. They were raised in that report. The first was that under the

Act they had not power to review part of an area or make an order with regard to part of an area. The second was that they had no power to permit of the loss of status to non-county boroughs and no general power to divide non-county boroughs. The third point they raised in that report was that they recommended the assimilation of the function of rural district councils and urban district councils; indicating of course that that was outside their powers as they then existed.
But a long time has elapsed since April, 1947. It appears from the 1948 report, published in 1949, that the Commission received no answer from the right hon. Gentleman with regard to those points. I should like to ask why not? Have the Government no policy with regard to these particular points raised so long ago as April, 1947? Why is it that the Government have taken no action with regard to those first three matters raised in the first report?
The second report was not published until 8th April, 1948. That rightly recognised that the Commission had no jurisdiction over functions. Neither party intended it to have jurisdiction over functions when the Commission was set up. That report made it clear that it could have made orders on the lines that this House envisaged in 1945, but that in the opinion of that Commission these orders, in the majority of cases, would amount to second-best arrangements. I am trying to state what the Commission said. They took the opportunity of putting forward their views and stating that, in part, implementing their views would mean legislation and, in part, it would mean amendment of the general principles laid down in regulations.
Then they made the important observation that if their recommendations in the 1947 report were not accepted by the Government it would be their duty—and they did not say that they could not carry it out—to carry out their task on the basis of their present instructions. That scheme put forward by the Commission involved, as I think that the Minister of Health will agree, a very considerable alteration of functions. I do not propose to discuss that scheme now. We have had no Debate on it. There is no reference to it in the 1945 Act or in this Bill, and I assume that it would be out


of Order to say anything about it. But what is clear—

Mr. Bevan: On that point, may we have the guidance of Mr. Speaker? There have been several reports by the Boundary Commission which obviously do not form a part of this Bill. It would be an intolerable restriction, I should imagine; upon the course of the Debate if it were not possible to argue at least in general terms about what the Commission has recommended. I do not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman should be deterred from letting the House have his views, if he has any, upon those recommendations.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: If this Debate were on the proposals put forward by the Commission we should be only too glad to accede to the right hon. Gentleman's request, but as this Debate is on the Second Reading of a Bill abolishing a Commission set up by Act of Parliament in 1945, and that Act in its Preamble merely recited that the Act was designed to set up the Commission and to secure the alteration of local government boundaries, I was under the impression that it would be out of Order if I discussed in any detail—

Mr. Bevan: Hear, hear.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: —the proposals put forward by the Boundary Commission in their second report. All I am seeking to do is to go through the sequence of events which has lead to the right hon. Gentleman coming to the conclusion to wind up the Commission, and to make out what I think is a strong case for saying that the right hon. Gentleman has come to a wrong decision which will be fraught with most serious consequences.

Mr. Bevan: Further to that point of Order. I merely raised the matter for guidance. The Second Reading of a Bill is always an opportunity for reviewing the whole field with which the Bill deals I thought that it would be open to any hon. Member in any part of the House to say that something else other than what is actually in it, ought to be put in this Bill. The hon. and learned Member is seeking to hide behind a narrow interpretation of the Rules of this House in order to conceal the poverty

of the views of the Opposition about local government.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Further to that provocative observation, I intend to do my best to adhere to what are the Rules of Order. If the right hon. Gentleman had wanted an opportunity to debate the reports of this Commission we could have done that long before now. The fact that he has provided no opportunity for Debate in this House shows clearly the barrenness of the Government's plans with regard to local government.

Mr. George Wigg: Surely, the point at issue is not whether the Minister of Health has failed to provide an opportunity for Debate. What is at issue is whether we should have a realistic discussion of the Bill before the House, which clearly must entail some discussion of the general prinicples upon which local government functions or should function if it is to function properly.

Mr. Mitchison: May I submit that in a Bill to abolish the Boundary Commission, the recommendations and the actions taken by that Commission must be considered not only as facts but on their merits?

Mr. Speaker: I thought that the position was quite clear. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that he wanted to link up this Bill with the original Act. That seems to me to be perfectly in Order. He also said that he did not want to discuss the detailed reports which have been issued by the Boundary Commission. That, I think, is perfectly correct. I do not think that we want to go into local matters in this Debate. This is a principle. The question is whether we do away with the Commission or whether we do not. I think that it would be going outside the scope of the Debate to make speeches on local matters which the Minister cannot answer because he is not concerned at the moment with local affairs.

Mr. Wigg: With all respect, Mr. Speaker, I should like to point out that this Bill will have important reactions in particular localities. I wish to be frank about this. I wish to argue from the point of view of my own constituency. If we are to have a Ruling which prevents us from showing how this Bill


will affect our constituencies and from saying what we think ought to be done about it, that Ruling will so narrow the discussion that it will be most unsatisfactory.

Mr. Speaker: One must not plead on local grounds. This is a case where general principles should be argued. That is what I meant by my Ruling.

Mr. Benn Levy: May I take it that we are not to understand that hon. Gentlemen are precluded from dealing with the activities of the Boundary Commission as essentially relevant to whether or not they believe it should be abolished, if they choose to do so?

Mr. Speaker: I do not quite understand what the hon. Gentleman means by "the activities of the Boundary Commission." One does not want to discuss their reports in detail as they affect localities. One should discuss the general principle.

Mr. Warbey: May we take it that your Ruling, Sir, does not preclude us from discussing those parts of the reports of the Local Government Boundary Commission which are concerned with the general principles of local government and not with particular localities?

Mr. Speaker: I should have thought that was in Order.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I am glad that the question has now been elucidated. In view of the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, I should have thought that if his view had been right, the point of Order should have arisen during the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary when he moved the Second Reading of this Bill. If the Government had some views about the scheme set out in the 1947 report, that would have been the time to try to put them forward in this Debate, but that he did not do. It is clear from that report that the Commission wanted to do a great deal more than this House—than the Socialist Party and the Conservative Party—agreed in 1945 that they should do. That report was not published until 8th April, 1947.
The right hon. Gentleman made an answer to a Question on that date saying that the Government would consider it, but that it would involve legislation which would be highly contentious,

highly involved and unlikely to produce unanimity among the local authorities concerned. Quite clearly, that issue was being shelved, although I should have thought that the reasons put forward by the right hon. Gentleman were more likely to attract him to enter the field than to deter him from doing so. Perhaps the explanation is that it would be unlikely to attract any votes, or, indeed, more likely to put votes on the other side.
The Commission, however, not having had any further reply, went on with its work and produced the third and final report in April, 1949, and that report sets out the letter which was sent by the Chairman of the Commission to the right hon. Gentleman, making it again quite clear that, even at that time, he had not received any reply to the three questions raised in the first report, and which are not of as big a character as those in the second report, or to the questions raised in chapters 8 and 9 of the second report. To that letter he had received no reply. In fact, the only reply he received to a later letter was a copy of an answer to a Parliamentary Question which said that it would not be practicable to introduce comprehensive legislation on local government reconstruction in the near future.
I should like to draw attention to the time that elapsed before that reply, which is the only answer to the Commission, was given. The second report was published on 8th April, 1948, and the only reply sent to them, in spite of their sending a letter on 24th November, 1948, was the answer to a Question on 29th March, 1949. I do not propose to comment on the courtesy of that reply to the Commission except to say that, surely, such a Commission is entitled to be treated in a more civil fashion.
The answer of the right hon. Gentleman dealt with the question of legislation. The Commission in their report indicated that part of their difficulties at least could be cured by amending the regulations which laid down the rules which they were to follow. The right hon. Gentleman has given them no guidance and no answer to the questions they raised with regard to the amendment of the general principles; and their 1948 report shows that they were quite willing to go on in accordance with the instructions as originally given to them by this House. They are quite willing to carry


out the intentions of Parliament, although they say that, in their opinion, that alone would not be the best solution throughout the country.
It was not until 27th June, 1949, that the right hon. Gentleman announced their dissolution on the ground that it was difficult for them to proceed with their work. In none of their reports have they said that they could not carry out the task given to them in accordance with their instructions—

Mr. Medland: They had three years in which to do it.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: And during that time they were waiting for a reply from the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Medland: They did not do it.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: What is the effect of the right hon. Gentleman's decision? It is to restore the position to what it was in 1945. This House has to bear in mind that, from 1939 onwards until March, 1945, no alteration of local government boundaries was possible. It was prohibited by the Register and Electors Act, which I think expired in March, 1945. Since the appointment of this Commission, all local authorities have been holding their hands, and so, in fact, there have been no Private Bill and no county reviews. Except in a very few cases, there has been no alteration of local government boundaries since 1939.
Let the House contrast that position with the position between 1929 and 1938. I am informed that, during that period, there were something like 1,300 boundary changes effected by local Acts, Provisional Orders and County Review Orders, and, if these figures are right, they must show that there is a tremendous number of alterations of boundaries urgently requiring to be made. These alterations of boundaries in the years before the war were often, and I think in the majority of cases, effected without alteration of functions. I must say that I think the right hon. Member for Wakefield was quite right when he said in 1945, during the Debate on the White Paper:
Changes there must be. Certain changes are in my view already overdue."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1945; Vol. 408. c. 435.]

The position is much worse today, and, by reason of the right hon. Gentleman's decision, a great deal more time is going to elapse before these changes, which were already overdue in 1945, are going to be effected.
In my view, the responsibility for this prolonged delay is that of the Government and, primarily, that of the Minister of Health, who has, in his treatment of this Commission and by his actions in deciding to wind it up, revealed a remarkable degree of administrative incapacity. There is to be no county review, as I understand it, before 1952; there are to be no Private Bills, or, at least, they are very much discouraged, by what we have heard this afternoon, for a considerable time.
Then, again we get the situation which the White Paper formulated in 1945 of a county review going on, and, at the same time, a county borough seeking to extend its boundaries and the county not knowing to what extent it will be threatened by action taken by the county borough. That was one evil which the setting up of the Commission was to cure, and the cure put forward met with universal approval, but now we are to go back on all that. In view of this decision, there is now going to be no correlation between the development of county boundaries and the review of county authorities.
I do not know how long it will be before the review which we are informed is now taking place will come to a conclusion, but I do feel that it is imperative that the Government should make clear as soon as possible—and they ought to be able to do it very soon indeed—what are their intentions with regard to the future set-up of local government, because the position cannot be left as it is.
The problem is urgent, and we really ought to know, and the local authorities ought to know, what the Government propose to do. Redistribution of local government areas is held up; retribution has fallen on the Commission. We believe, as the Socialist Party believed in 1945, that changes can and should be made and are most overdue with regard to local government areas, and that these changes can be made, as the party opposite agreed in 1945, without a radical alteration of functions. That is a view from which the Commission in its report did not dissent.


I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add:
this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which suspends the making of minor and urgent adjustments by a simple and inexpensive machinery originally set up by Parliament for the purpose.

Mr. Sidney Marshall: I beg to second the Amendment.

4.21 p.m.

Mr. Symonds: This is a simple machinery Bill designed to clear the ground for the comprehensive review of local government which the Government now think necessary. In the clearing of that ground is involved the winding-up of the Boundary Commission. As I see it, the speech to which we have just listened from the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) really goes to prove the case for that winding-up. He argued that there was agreement in 1945 between both sides of the House to deal with boundaries and to ignore functions. That may have been so, but I would remind him of what the Boundary Commission subsequently discovered. They said:
We have definitely reached the conclusion that in many areas—and these cover the great bulk of the population—our present powers and instructions do not permit the formation of local government units as effective and convenient as in our opinion they should be. Thus the alternatives before us were to make orders which would in many cases have resulted in second best arrangements or, taking the opportunity presented to us by our statutory duty to make an Annual Report, to set out our views.
In other words, they said that, had they continued on the originally agreed basis, they could only have produced a second best result. We do not want a second best result with regard to the organisation of local government, and therefore think that the winding up of the Commission is perfectly justified.
The Government's case is quite straightforward. It has been found in practice that the Commission's terms of reference were far too limited in that they could not deal with functions. Not only that. The report which they produced in 1947 has not met with general acceptance, and therefore it would be quite impossible to expect such a report to be implemented in the second half of the life of any Parliament unless it

were an agreed Measure. It would cut right across parties and raise conflicting interests of every kind. That being so, some comprehensive action is required. As, in any case, it would be unpopular with many vested interests, I think that the only way in which a Government could introduce effective local government reform would be to do so early in the life of a new Parliament.
There are two matters arising out of the proposals before us which should most concern us in this Debate. The first is how much change in local government is to be allowed in the interim between now and the comprehensive review, and what the machinery is to be under this Bill for interim changes, because we all appreciate that local government boundaries cannot be completely frozen for any appreciable length of time. There must be possibilities of adjustment—like those mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary—to deal with urgent housing needs. That is the first point which we ought to consider. The second is what should be the main principles on which the Minister should base his review.
With regard to Government policy in respect of changes within this interim period, the Bill makes it clear that there are to be no major changes. One of the changes most sought in many quarters is that from non-county borough to county borough status. But changes of status are to be ruled out, and we are left with only minor boundary adjustments to meet housing needs. The machinery adopted in this Bill to prevent changes of the kind I have indicated is shown in the first paragraph of the Schedule, where we have the figure of 100,000 carried on from the 1945 Act as the limit below which a non-county borough cannot seek county borough status. That, of course, prevents practically all non-county boroughs—in fact, all except one—outside the London area from seeking county borough status. That figure of 100,000 in the 1945 Act was assumed at the time to be a temporary arrangement to prevent changes while a review was going on. It was meant to cause a "freeze" in local government status for a short period.
It is now proposed to re-enact that figure in a new statute, and many of us fear that if the figure of 100,000 is put permanently into statutory form, it will tend to become a standard by which these matters are to be judged. This affects


some towns in particular. In the 1947 Report, 10 non-county boroughs were singled out by the Boundary Commission for special consideration as "new" type county boroughs. The constituency which I have the honour to represent is one of those 10. Most of them are medium-sized towns with populations of just under or just over the 75,000 mark. They are all very proud of their history and achievements—and rightly so—and are anxious to achieve a status more in keeping with those achievements.
All except one of those 10 non-county boroughs would be barred by paragraph 1 of the Schedule to this Bill from improving their status, and they feel that this, in effect, amounts to special discrimination against them, especially when they remember how many counties and county boroughs there are smaller in size, and less efficient, than themselves. For instance, there are five counties and four county boroughs with populations of under 50,000; 10 counties and 20 county boroughs with populations of under 75,000; and 13 counties and 33 county boroughs with populations of under 100,000. If paragraph 1 of the Schedule is intended by the Minister merely, so to speak, to freeze the present status pending the comprehensive review, I would say that the paragraph is unnecessary. There are other courses open to the Minister without adopting this one. He can disapprove a local authority's resolution to present a Bill to the House. He may say that he would be unwilling to prevent any local authority from having access to Parliament; but, of course, if he made it clear to a local authority that he did not want certain action taken, his views would, no doubt, have great influence with that authority. There is, however, another course open to him. He could quite easily arrange to have such a Bill blocked on Second Reading.
Therefore, I argue that the Minister's objective of freezing status as it is now can be achieved without this objectionable figure of 100,000 being given permanency in a statute. In any case, it does not completely close the gaps, because there is one which I have mentioned of those 10 which is over 100,000, and there are four other non-county boroughs in the London area also over

100,000. What we hope, therefore, is that the Minister will completely restore the status quo ante 1945 and not merely substantially restore it, as he says he is going to do. In other words, we hope that he will modify paragraph 1 of the Schedule and so not prejudice the future with regard to the standard by which non-county borough and county borough status is to be fixed.
We think that he should restore the figure of 75,000 but, I would add, restore it not on the original basis of the 1931 census but on the up-to-date estimates of the Registrar-General, because since 1931 all the authorities most closely involved in these issues have grown considerably and are still growing. The 1931 census figures would be completely meaningless. My right hon. Friend may say that if he puts the figure at 75,000 it may leave the door open to quite a number of authorities to seek to promote Private Bills now in order to achieve county borough status. But I can assure him that, at any rate speaking for my own constituency, that would not be done by Cambridge, because we appreciate that a matter of this kind cannot be settled effectively at this stage of the life of this Parliament, and in any case we are sensible enough to realise that no Private Bill put forward by Cambridge could hope to succeed unless account had already been taken of the effects of county borough status for Cambridge on the remainder of the county. I realise that the two problems are inextricably linked up and we could not hope to solve our own domestic problems simply at the expense of those around us.
So much for the interim situation pending this comprehensive review. We hope the Minister will completely restore the status quo ante 1945 and not merely substantially restore it, because otherwise he would run the risk of setting an undesirable standard for the future.
As I see it, the second and most important feature of this Debate is to try to get from the Minister some indication of the principles on which his review is going to be based. I am not asking him for any detailed information about the actual structure of local government which he envisages. It may well be that he has not finally made up his mind as the review is still under way, but I think it might help if one stated certain general


principles and tried to get the Minister's reactions to those principles.
To my mind, the first and most vital principle should be that local government must be local, with all that that implies; in other words, that the personal services and so on most closely affecting the life of the citizen should be controlled by people on the spot living among the electors to whom they are responsible. One can well see the case for general and non-personal services being organised over a wider area if necessary, if that leads to greater efficiency and economy; but in the last resort I myself would be quite happy to sacrifice a little efficiency in the interests of a really live democracy. As I see it, a live pulsating democracy is to be preferred to any soulless and remote system of control, even if the latter, in the narrowest accounting sense, might be considered more efficient and economical.
I think the case for the claim that that should be the basis can be illustrated from these 10 non-county boroughs that I have mentioned. All of them have been closely investigated by the Boundary Commission in the course of its inquiries, and they have all been found to deserve on their merits the higher status, the "new" county borough status, which the Boundary Commission recommends for them. They happen to be a convenient size numerically, but it was not simply on account of numbers that the Boundary Commission picked them out for special treatment. I should like to quote paragraph 62 in the 1947 Report:
We are entirely unable to distinguish between the towns in (1)"—
that is, existing county boroughs—
and those in (2)"—
that is, these 10 non-county boroughs—
on individual merits. The 10 non-county boroughs are as capable of administering local government services as are most of the 52 county boroughs.
These non-county boroughs have exercised most efficiently powers that the Boundary Commission recommends that they should have in the new status which it proposes, and many of them have been pioneers in many spheres of local government. Cambridge, for instance, had a school dental service many years before other people thought of it. What concerns me particularly is that delay in recognising the claim of these towns to higher status is detrimental to local

government efficiency. It is disheartening and discouraging to those men and women who have been and are still ready to devote their time and energies to the service of their fellow citizens.
That leads me to the second and final basic principle on which I hope the Minister will base himself. I think he should not start de novo. He should not draw up a neat paper plan of the most efficient way in which local government might be organised with everything neatly dovetailed, because to do so would ignore the history which lies behind local government and would ignore the human beings who carry it on. I hope very much that he will start on the basis of things as they are, and will seek to adapt and re-organise that structure to suit modern conditions, remembering all the time that he is dealing with a living organism. I hope very much that he will take fully into account the claims of those existing organs of local government for whom I have spoken—the medium-sized non-county boroughs which have proved their efficiency and which are preserving the essential elements of local interest, local participation and local initiative which alone give life and vitality to local government.

4.41 p.m.

Mr. Harold Roberts: I find myself in hearty agreement with very much of what was said by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Symonds). I hesitate to make a suggestion to any Member as to his duty, but might I say this to him in a friendly way—that perhaps, as a preliminary to raising the points which he has put before the House, and which are really suggestions to the Minister for action when the Bill has been passed, he might very well enter a caveat by voting against the Bill to start with?

Mr. Symonds: Will the hon. Member tell me why?

Mr. Roberts: If the hon. Member fails to do that, then the other courses which he mentioned are still open to him. The hon. Member for Cambridge has spoken of the work of smaller local authorities, but it has been my good fortune to spend many years in the city council of the largest county borough in this country so that I can perhaps look at this matter with some degree of detachment. The


Government are asking us to repeal an Act passed by general consent four years ago, and through the mouth of the Parliamentary Secretary they give certain reasons for that. The reasons given are that the Commission set up to administer the statute tell us, "It is no good; until functions have been altered and further legislation brought forward, the job is hopeless and should not be undertaken."
The Parliamentary Secretary made great play with the greatest of the three reports laid before Parliament, namely, that for the year 1947. I must read one of the passages of the later, but less spectacular report, that for 1948. I pass right to the end—the worst that can be said against it:
But we still remain of the opinion that neither we nor our successors can everywhere create effective and convenient units of local government without some amendment of local government legislation.
I accept that; they cannot everywhere create them, but they can do it somewhere.
I think I had better mention the events which occurred in connection with the correspondence with the Minister. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that when the Boundary Commission made their great report in respect of 1947, they were encouraged by the Minister to take a wide view of their functions. If I may say so, that was quite right, because the opinions of local government officers, who are an able and experienced body of men—whether we agree with them or not—must be of great interest. Later, however, I do not think he was as helpful to the Commission as he might have been.
In December, 1948, when they had done an enormous amount of work and made most valuable researches but had not dealt with any of the minor specific functions they had been given, they wrote to him to find out where they were. As far as I can see, that letter was not acknowledged for more than three months, and then it was acknowledged only by an indirect method of letting them have an answer which had already been given in this House some three or four days earlier. I think the Commission deserved better of the Minister than that. I can only suppose that the Minister could not do any better because he did not know where he was, and his rather despairing appeal to Mr. Speaker that the area of

discussion this afternoon should be wide, so that we on these benches might give our views on the contents of the 1947 report, seemed to indicate that he is looking to us to find him a policy.
I quote from the 1948 report:
In view of this letter and of the considerations stated in our Report for 1947 it is now our duty to proceed with our work on the basis of the existing statute law and of the General Principles laid down for our guidance. None the less we are reluctant at a time when no decision has been taken either by the Government or by Parliament on the major points raised in the two Reports to take any steps which would obviously be inappropriate if it was thought right at some future date to give effect to our recommendations either as they stand or in some modified form. Accordingly, we now intend to select those cases in which the Order would be both appropriate under the existing statute law and General Principles and also, so far as we can judge, appropriate if either the law or the General Principles were amended on the lines recommended in our Reports or in some similar manner. An obvious case for which early Orders would be appropriate is the union of two or more counties—a matter on which no suggestion for alteration of the present law or General Principles has been made. Similarly, in some cases, but unfortunately not in the majority, an Order for extending a borough would be equally necessary and appropriate whatever the status of the borough might become. We shall also continue the investigation of county boroughs with populations below 60,000—the figure mentioned in General Principle No. 7—and shall proceed with the systematic review of county districts. The reviews of some 700 county districts have not yet been begun.
There is quite enough useful work to be done within the ambit of the Act of 1945, and they say, "We are prepared to go on and do it." They make it plain that their decisions will be such as in no way to conflict with any future legislation on local government which may be dealt with by Parliament. Instead of that, the Government propose to root them out, to repeal the Act and, on the face of it, to go back to the earlier state of affairs; but the Parliamentary Secretary warned us that that was not quite so. The earlier state of affairs had, of course, one merit—it was a lawyers' paradise. Far be it from me to detract from people like Parliamentary agents, but, after all, I think public convenience is of greater importance than their convenience, and the setting up of a permanent commission of this kind was designed to be of general assistance.
It would have been of general assistance, if we go back to the reports of


the Commission and take them as reasons for what we do this afternoon. We must consider not only the report of 1947 but that of 1948, in which they say that there is other work which they can still do—very minor compared with what they were meant to do, but still important. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that if we go back to the law as it was before 1945, certain people must be very careful of the Bills they promote. They must work under the shadow of the 1947 report, which was not in existence formerly. That is to say, local authorities must not only go back to an inconvenient form of procedure but go back under a cloud, and the hon. Member for Cambridge was rightly apprehensive of that very unfortunate state of affairs.
It was suggested by the Minister of Health that Members here should give their views on the report of the Royal Commission. Well, I do not think it is for the Opposition to make too many suggestions as to legislation. Apart from anything else, they have not the large amount of material which the Minister can collect to help in formulating proposals. However, I can at least make one or two remarks on what the people of the country—the local authorities—appeared to think about the report of 1947.
To begin with, the Welsh counties unanimously turned down the recommendations made in respect to that land. The recommendations, apparently, did not apply to Gwent and so the Minister is not, perhaps, as closely affected by them as he otherwise would be. Then they aroused definite hostility among small authorities affected by them. I have a recollection of going to Cromer about that time and of seeing, as I got near Uppingham, a large notice saying, "This is the county of Rutland." Going back I saw a similar notice somewhere near Caistor. That is to say, the local authorities were displaying a spirit worthy of G. K. Chesterton in his finest days. We recollect how the London boroughs, in "The Napoleon of Notting Hill," fought for their independence. The counties began to show a similar spirit towards the Government's proposals.
It is not for me to defend the counties. I am a borough man. However, this I may say. I would remind the Minister

of the old Liberal saying, in which there was a lot of truth, that good government is no substitute for self-government, and that what the people of a district want is, after all, a very material factor in deciding what they ought to have. Furthermore, I had not gathered that the non-county boroughs were at all enthusiastic; nor, oddly enough, that they would disagree with the Commission being swept away. I think they are wrong myself, for a very good reason: that if they got rid of King Log they would have King Stork before they were very much older.
I have to consider, as far as I can, what are likely to be the lines of Government legislation. The right hon. Gentleman has preserved—and still preserves—a statesmanlike reticence on the point—perhaps for the best of all reasons, that he does not know. But let us consider what, in fact, has been the Government's record. To begin with, there can be no doubt that the Leader of the House was very pleased indeed with the system which some people called that of the Regional Commissioners, but others rudely called that of the gauleiters, who governed this country during the war, and there were some strong suggestions, as the war drew to a close, that he regarded with much admiration Oliver Cromwell's system of government by major-generals. It is true that in the legislation that the Government have enacted, they have always tended to put more and more into the hands of larger areas—counties as against non-county boroughs.
Here let me interpose a reminder to the House of a service which the hon. Member for Cambridge did for his city in 1945, I think it was. The Government came forward with the Police Bill, which they carried through, taking away the police from various non-county authorities. I recollect that one of the results of the Bill was that Cambridge was to lose control of its police force. The Cambridge Council and the town clerk came here in dire distress. I met them in the Lobby. They saw the hon. Member. I think there was an amendment put down. At any rate, the Home Secretary devised the formula by which Cambridge got away with it, And a very good thing, too.
It is a very curious historical twist. Hon. Members opposite derive historically


from the Liberals and Radicals of the late Victorian age, and there is no doubt about it that those Radicals viewed with great concern the powers of the counties. That was due to historical causes. The county represented quarter sessions and the nobility and gentry of England. Whenever they could see that power abridged by the making of smaller authorities, they welcomed it. They greeted exultantly, for example, the invention of parish councils by the Fowler Act. The wheel has gone full circle. The landed gentry are being gradually replaced by a very able, very well administered county bureaucracy, and it is the modern trend of legislation in these Socialist days to throw power into the hands of the counties and to take it away from the non-county boroughs.
Accordingly, if I am asked for my individual views on the report of the Commission, I say that I consider, as does apparently the hon. Member for Cambridge, that the Commissioners are too mechanical; they have too little regard for history and for the sentiments of the different areas; and I think also that they tend to be unduly hard upon the non-county boroughs. It is very fashionable among ignorant people to sneer at Little Pedlington. It is true that my active life has been spent in the service of a great city, but I was born in Little Pedlington, and I am not ashamed of the borough in which I was born, which had a population then of about 13,000—it is now about 21—but which was, I think, as well administered a small borough as one could find.
I think of other small boroughs up and down the country which are models of good administration, and I regard with great suspicion all legislation which tends to cut them down or to abridge their powers. It may well be that some of the smallest may have to lose powers. One cannot have too much regard for history, although I think any man of sensibility would regret to see a place like Rye deprived of its powers, or having its powers lowered.
However, these are merely suggestions for the future. The question is, what are we going to do now? Carry on while the Government are making up their mind, having General Elections, making

up their mind again afterwards, whether they are in a position of responsibility or in that of a shadow Cabinet, and only then to satisfying us? Meanwhile the system of inconvenience which was then remedied by this statute is to be restored. I see no reason to do it. The existence of this Act in no way interferes with the Government's review of local government functions. It does not prevent them or anybody else from reviewing them. It will not be abused, because the Commission, by a self-denying ordinance, make plain that they will do nothing to interfere with the status quo. Accordingly I regard the Bill as totally unnecessary.
It can have only one rational justification, namely, that this remedial power having been swept away, it will be open to the Minister, or any future Minister, to bring in a far more drastic statute, and one clipping the wings of local authorities, under the pretext that they cannot agree, and, therefore, must be governed from above; the Minister praying in aid the fact that the very abuses are there which the Government are not allowing the Commission to remedy. That would be a rational although a Machiavellian justification for this Measure. The only reason given so far is the one given by the Parliamentary Secretary, which completely breaks down when one takes the trouble to read the report on which it is based. We have not, I suppose, yet got to the point where the mere whim of the Minister or of the Cabinet is a reason for passing a measure. It must, I think, be supported by some semblance of reason, and as I see none in this measure I do not feel able to support, and, indeed, shall vote against it.

5.1 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: I came to the House prepared to make an attack on this Bill and even perhaps to say a hard word about the Minister of Health. Having listened to the speeches of the Opposition, I am in very great danger because they are converting me to his side. The opening speech was, I think, the usual gambit in the game of hunting the Minister of Health. This Parliamentary game usually starts about 3.30 in the afternoon and ends about 9.30 by the rabbit hunting the dogs. I am not getting caught up with the dogs if hon. Gentlemen opposite will pardon the analogy.
The hon. Member for Handsworth (Mr. H. Roberts) does not, I am sure, believe for a moment that the Minister of Health or any other Member of the Government intends to organise the local government of this country in terms of gauleiters or regional commissioners. Never, I believe, was there a party holding office which had more experience of local government or was more passionately devoted to the principle of local government than the present Government. It is utter nonsense for the hon. Member for Handsworth to talk in the terms in which he did.
Having said that, let me return to the truth which I had in me when I first came to the House this afternoon. I greatly regret that the Minister of Health decided to introduce this Bill. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Handsworth when he suggests that the Government have used the pretext of disagreement between local authorities as an excuse for taking this step. That seems to me to be a little bit of nonsense, and I think that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Symonds), when he talked about the unanimity of local government authorities, was rather missing the point.
I start my attack by making a constructive suggestion to the Minister of Health. I would suggest to him that at all costs he refuses to disclose the names of those officials and those gentlemen engaged in carrying out his comprehensive survey of local government. The names of those gentlemen should be top secret, and on the day before they make the announcement of their proposals they should take tickets from England to the Continent and stay there, because if anyone puts forward comprehensive proposals for a reform of local government in this country he will be in danger of being torn limb from limb when some of the local authorities find how the proposals apply to them. This reaction runs across all parties. The truth is that the reform of local government in this country is really a non-party question.
In my constituency of Dudley or in my home town of Stoke-on-Trent, it is equally true that objectivity is lacking. Anyone going to Stoke-on-Trent or Newcastle-under-Lyme and talking about the re-adjustment of boundaries in North Staffordshire have a very good chance of being dirked. That has gone on for a

considerable period of time and I regret it. One of the most valuable things which the Commission has done during the last four years has been to try to change the atmosphere in which discussions on boundary revision take place. Having improved the atmosphere, the Commission had the advantage of meeting not as a tribunal but by sending commissioners round from place to place to hear what local authorities had to say. The Commission made up its mind and put forward its own proposal.
My complaint is that four years have been largely wasted—I hope not completely wasted—and I hope that the Minister and his officials will build on the experience of the Commission so that those four years will not be completely lost. Dudley, for example, is more affected by the proposals now before the House than any other place in the country because it happens to be a small part of Worcestershire surrounded by Staffordshire. For Dudley local government is not solely concerned with history or academic principles but with houses, schools, playing fields and the like. We cannot build houses and schools because we are hag-ridden by the need for boundary extension. Once we put forward proposals we are involved in opposition from Staffordshire. Before we know where we are, we are concerned with proposals which affect South Staffordshire and then even North Staffordshire as the proposals widen out into broad principles. As the Commission found out, as soon as they made proposals, however limited, they were soon dealing with places situated a hundred miles away.
It is clear that the Minister himself was not unaware of the difficulties. I think it was two years ago that he said that we could not separate boundaries from functions and that clearly he saw the situation which in fact has arisen. He let the Commission carry on for another couple of years before chopping off its head. Now four years have gone by and Dudley cannot get land for schools and houses.

Mr. Ernest Davies: It will have to extend to North Staffordshire.

Mr. Wigg: I agree that North Staffordshire could learn a little by way of tolerance in discussions of this problem. It is true that the problems of Dudley and


its neighbours are not discussed with the intensity and passion which disfigure the discussions which go on between Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent. The hon. Member knows as much about that as I do.
The point which I want to stress is that no proposals put forward by Dudley are ever considered on their merits. The mere fact that Dudley puts forward proposals straight away arouses opposition from Staffordshire. If I have the good fortune to serve on a committee which will subsequently consider these provisions in detail, I shall endeavour to persuade the committee to amend the Bill so that county boroughs such as Dudley can in fact proceed not by means of Private Bills but by means of provisional orders even though they are opposed. I did not altogether understand the Parliamentary Secretary when he was making his announcement about policy, although I thought he showed he was aware of this point. Section 140 of the Local Government Act, 1933, provides for the alteration of the boundaries, of county boroughs, etc., by way of provisional order. Subsection (3) of this Section provides that
Where proposals are made by this Section to the Minister by the council of a county borough for a purpose involving the extension of the area of the borough, the Minister … shall not entertain the proposals if any notice of abjection to procedure by provisional order has been sent to him …
I hope that the Minister of Health will agree that where objections have been made, a local inquiry should be held, and if he so decides provisional order methods shall be afforded so that places like Dudley can get a revision of boundaries by provisional order despite opposition.
I have not said half the hard things I intended to say this afternoon about what I regard as a waste of four years, and I very much wish that the Opposition had come here today and put the real case against the Bill. They have been far too niggling and fiddling; they have looked round for reasons on which to oppose; they have found faults where none exist, and have failed to make the simple point that what the Minister has now done could have been done in 1945; that he could have got on with the job so that the revisions would have been made by this time. Of course, I do not

think he would still be alive to tell the tale, for reasons I have already given. Indeed, I think his life may still be in danger when his comprehensive survey is completed.
I hope the Minister will realise the very great difficulties in which county boroughs are involved. The problem must be looked at on its merits, and there must be some impartial authority—in this case himself—to force these reforms through, otherwise we shall have a standstill. I do not want to abuse this opportunity by overpleading for my constituency, but I do ask the Minister to look at the special problems of Dudley, and other places which perhaps are not quite so bad, and where somehow or other they must get access to land on which to build houses and schools. It is not possible for such authorities to proceed by Private Bill; they can proceed only if the Minister will agree to use the provisional order method, even though—as will certainly happen in the case of Dudley, whatever the proposals may be—Staffordshire and the neighbouring authorities will oppose. I hope my right hon. Friend will accept the Amendment I intend to put down for the Committee stage. Perhaps when he speaks tonight he will make it unnecessary for me to move such an Amendment by indicating that the Government themselves will put down such a proposal.

5.12 p.m.

Mr. Heathcoat Amory: I shall detain the House for only a very few minutes, and I shall not be provoked by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). I think that this decision to close down the Boundary Commission entirely is regrettable. I suppose that if ex-members of a good many Government commissions were consulted, they might well say that painless liquidation was preferable to the fate of being pigeonholed. But after all, here we have a commission which had executive jobs to do and the executive powers with which to do them, and the immense amount of work they have done will be wasted. We ought also to remember that the immense amount of work which has been done by local authorities in conjunction with the Boundary Commission will also be wasted.
I am sure we all join in the tribute paid to the great ability of the Chairman


of the Boundary Commission by the Parliamentary Secretary, and to the members of the Commission. They were well up to their job, but I am so afraid that the way in which they have been "tapped" down may make it a little more difficult in future to get men of that quality to serve. I realise that it was a boundary commission and not a local government commission. It found itself tangled up with the bigger issues. On that I would only say that I have been a member of a local authority for nearly 20 years—I had not realised what an old chap I was getting—and I think many other Members who are connected with local authorities will agree with me when I say that unfortunately during that time we have seen interest in the work of local authorities diminish.
I believe there are several reasons for that. First, there is the complexity of the new business they have to do, combined with the continuous growth of the power of the central government. Today local authorities find themselves more and more merely agents. Then, inevitably, even during that short period of 20 years, there have been enormous changes in the character of particular areas, due to population movements. I think we all agree that, in the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there are many deep-seated maladjustments in local government today. The problem is how it can be revitalised, and how present-day responsibilities can best be allotted.
I would observe, in parenthesis, that whatever decisions are taken and whatever policies are eventually decided upon in regard to the re-organised functions of local government, I hope the dominating principle will always be that the unit of government for any particular responsibility should be the smallest, the most local and the most intimate that can do the job properly. We want local government to be local, and also to remain government. Almost the greatest danger of all facing local government today—particularly the subordinate units—is that people may no longer find the job worth doing.
It is astonishing that during the past four years the Minister of Health and the Government should have succeeded in keeping their ideas about the future re-organisation of local government—if they

have any ideas—so effectively under their hats. It seems to me that in that regard the right hon. Gentleman has been shy, modest and retiring. It may be that those are the real qualities of his character and that we have been deceived in thinking otherwise. It may also be that redistribution may involve retribution. There are rumours going about, however, one of which is that the right hon. Gentleman himself is inclined to favour regionalisation. I do not know whether that is so or not. Personally, I hope not; but if it is so I trust that he will tell us in this Debate whether that is his broad idea as to the future of local government.
Another thing I have noticed as a result of my own humble experience in local government is how extraordinarily difficult it is to get local agreement on even the smallest changes. Every local authority regards its bigger neighbour as a rapacious monster with an insatiable appetite. I should like to quote one case which I think illustrates how strong these feelings are. It concerns two parishes, where we had to try to find a site for a joint school. Negotiations went on interminably for a year or two, but somehow we felt all along that we had not succeeded in getting at the true reason for disagreement. Eventually, at a local conference, the real reason emerged when someone said: "Us can't join in with they chaps. They be Roundheads." After that all the clouds went by and we got at the real reason. I am sure the hon. Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Mr. Medland) will agree with me that down our way it is very often quite difficult to get at the real reason behind such disagreements. I am therefore the last person to underestimate the difficulties.
It seems to me that this business falls into three phases. First, there is the question of dealing with those overdue urgent and minor adjustments which, because they have not been dealt with, are causing confusion and delay: For example, where an authority ought to build a school to serve a population in an area which it knows must very shortly be taken over by another authority. The second phase, quite separate, is consideration of the reorganisation of the functions of local government. The third phase is the carrying out of major alterations to boundaries, resulting from the new policy that arises


from the consideration of reorganisation. It may be that the second phase, the consideration of reorganisation of functions, should be carried out by a different body. I shall not deal with that.
Now the Minister has said that the Government do not intend to proceed with the reorganisation of local government at present because it is too contentious a subject and that we must go back to the old method of minor adjustments—Private Bill procedure. The Minister said that this procedure was no more expensive or tedious than Boundary Commission procedure. Is that really so? I believe that in the case of a contested Bill it must be more tedious and more expensive.
Parliament is grossly overworked at present, and here is a bit of business that could be hived off and passed over. It is rumoured that the Minister has implied that in future only those Private Bills which directly deal with schemes involving the housing of surplus population will be approved by the Government, and that all others will be opposed. I do not know whether that is so or not, but if it is the Minister's view, we should like to hear it from him.
What I think is significant is that in relation to the Commission being continued for certain purposes, two important associations, representing local authorities—associations which are not by any means always agreed on such matters—find themselves in complete agreement. They would like to see the Commission continued in order to deal with adjustments of the boundaries of county districts and to carry through agreed proposals in connection with the boundaries of counties and county boroughs.

Mr. Medland: To what associations is the hon. Member referring?

Mr. Amory: To the County Councils' Association and the Association of Municipal Corporations.

Mr. Medland: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is no agreement whatever, and that district and urban councils are very much against it.

Mr. Amory: The two associations I have mentioned are among the associations which are agreed on this matter.

Mr. Pannell: Does not the hon. Gentleman know that in local government, parish councils consider themselves to be most important?

Mr. Amory: I am a believer in parish councils, and I fully agree that their views should be taken into consideration. I repeat that it is the view of the County Councils' Association and the Association of Municipal Corporations that it would be a good thing to keep the Commission in being to work in a limited field, and for the particular purposes of dealing with adjustments of county district boundaries and putting through agreed proposals for altering the boundaries of counties and country boroughs. I ask the Minister to give full weight to the views of these two associations. To continue the Commission's existence, so that it can work in a limited field, will I believe help to clear away some tiresome and frustrating handicaps to the efficient functioning of local government.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I should like to begin by complimenting the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Amory) on the restrained way in which he has put his case today. It was, if I may say so, a great improvement on the previous speeches from the Opposition benches. I regret very much that the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) should have chosen the occasion to make this a party political issue, because I cannot believe that in any sense the future of local government in this country is a party issue. It is a question of administration, and views on administration may coincide however different may be the political complexions of those members who hold them. To attack the Minister of Health, as the hon. and learned Member did and as the hon. Member for Handsworth (Mr. H. Roberts) also did, has not contributed to the success of this Debate.
We are not here today to allocate responsibility for the present position. We are here rather to consider what is the best method of procuring the reform of local government and, perhaps by stretching the Debate a little widely, to discuss the principles on which that reform should be based when it takes place. I am, however, prepared to go along with the hon. Member for Tiverton


to this extent: I am sorry that we did not, early in this Parliament, attack the problem of local government on comprehensive lines and not piecemeal, as we have done.
I would rather be speaking in support of winding up the Parliamentary Boundary Commission than in support of winding up the Local Government Boundary Commission. We are faced with the position of having altered Parliamentary boundaries to coincide with local government boundaries, and now the whole future of local government is once again in the melting pot. During the last four years we have redistributed the powers of local authorities. We have set up regional organisations of local authorities, and now we have regional organisations for health, education and town planning, which rarely, if ever, coincide.
I think it is a pity that we did not tackle the problem more boldly at the beginning of this Parliament. There is no time now to tackle it before the General Election, especially in view of the political temperature which will be generated during the next few months. Unlike Members opposite, I do not blame the Government over-much for their past reluctance to tackle this serious and delicate problem. It is all very well for Members opposite to attack the Minister, but they might remember that there has been no comprehensive attack on the problem of local government since the Act of 1888.
It is true that a number of minor changes have been made from time to time, but the last major change in the structure of local government was made in that year. In that I am at the moment expressing the view of the Boundary Commission. It is all very well for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) to criticise the Government, as he will be doing no doubt later in the Debate, but he himself was once Minister of Health and had the opportunity of embarking on comprehensive changes in the structure of local government of a kind which could have commended themselves not only to Parliament but to the people of this country as well.
Now we are asked to criticise the Government for not having embarked on

this review at a quite exceptional period. During the past four years we have been living in abnormal times, and I think it is justifiable that the Government should have felt that there were other matters to absorb their attention instead of this problem which, nevertheless, is to many of us of outstanding importance.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I suppose that the hon. Member does not recognise anything abnormal about the times between 1933 and 1939?

Mr. Greenwood: Yes, Sir. Those were very abnormal times, when unemployment rose to higher figures than ever before. In many industrial areas the unemployment figures in 1933 were higher than ever before in the history of the country, and considerably higher than at the present time.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I was thinking much more in terms of the international situation, which a great many of us were working very hard to meet.

Mr. Greenwood: I should have thought that the less Members opposite speak about the international situation from 1933 to 1939, the better their friends in the country will be pleased.
In spite of this question of why delay may have taken place, it has been perfectly clear, since the first report of the Local Government Boundary Commission, that the members felt that their terms of reference did not enable them to embark on their work in the way that they would have liked to have done. From the time that this Parliament was elected to the present time, we have been dealing with the problem of local government in a piecemeal manner. There have been many occasions on which Members in all parts of the House have felt it necessary to express views in criticism of measures on the grounds that they have drawn a wholly illogical distinction between the borough and non-borough councils.
Those who have criticised these provisions have been justified in Appendix C of the 1947 report, which shows that 33 of the largest non-county boroughs have an average population considerably in excess of that of 33 of the smaller county boroughs. I can be perfectly impartial on this problem, because I have the honour to represent


parts of two county boroughs, two non-county boroughs and two urban districts, and was for a time a member of a metropolitan borough council. I criticised these proposals because I felt the Government were tackling the problem in a piece-meal way. When we had the Fire Services Bill before the House, I made an appeal to the Home Secretary:
I plead with the Government to put first things first, to decide what is to be the structure of local government in our country, and then to decide what are the proper bodies to exercise the functions which the Government allocated to them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1947; Vol. 435, c. 1503.]
The same point of view was expressed on a number of occasions by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), who I hope will have an opportunity of addressing the House later. It is clear that this point of view began to receive a measure of support in Government circles, because in December the Minister of Health made his already quoted remark that
Everyone who knows about local government feels that it is nonsense to talk about functions and boundaries separately.
A few months later we had the Commission converted to that point of view and urging it on my right hon. Friend.
This is not a question of allocating responsibility. What we have to do is to decide whether it is right in existing circumstances that the Local Government Boundary Commission should be wound up. I do not think there is any other answer we can give to that but "Yes." It is not the fault of my right hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench. It is very easy for ordinary back benchers to attack the Government for this state of affairs, but this state of affairs has developed under an Act which was passed by this House without a Division and under regulations which were also accepted without a Division. It was open to us or to our predecessors when those decisions were taken, to point out what would be their effect. I do not think it is very helpful to look back to four years ago and criticise the Government for a situation which has developed because of the wishes expressed by the House of Commons in those days.
All of us on these benches have an affectionate respect for the Minister of

Health; no doubt Members opposite have a healthy respect for him, even if at times they show their affection in a peculiar way. All of us have a respect for the Chairman of the Local Government Boundary Commission, Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve, who has done extremely useful work in this connection. His public service, both during the war and since, has been of incalculable value to the country. To have had Sir Malcolm and my right hon. Friend reviewing together the whole structure of local government would have been a great step forward in the history of public administration, but it is clear that the Commission have found it impossible to proceed under the terms of reference which Members agreed to unanimously when they were placed before the House in the early days of this Parliament.
That is the position we are facing at the present time. Under the rules we laid down the Boundary Commission found it impossible to proceed in any useful way with the task entrusted to them. I regret that, but in the circumstances I do not see how we can expect the machinery set up to continue to function efficiently. Like the Parliamentary Secretary, we must express our thanks to the Commission and regret that it should be necessary to bring their work to a conclusion.
It is regrettable that we should have to take this decision. Within the next few months or years, Parliament will be almost deluged with Bills promoted by local authorities to extend their boundaries. We need not panic unduly about that. We have been told by the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) about something like 1,000 attempts being made to alter boundaries between 1929 and 1938, but all of those were not opposed changes. In the year 1937–38 there were only three Private Bills promoted by local authorities for the extension of their boundaries which had to be discussed on the Floor of the House. It is true, however, that when it is necessary for a local authority to apply to Parliament for powers to extend their boundaries it is an extremely expensive process to undertake.
The hon. Member for Handsworth (Mr. H. Roberts) has been doing a little research into Welsh history. I have been doing some research into the question


under discussion today, and I find that the Minister of Health has been one of the best friends of local government in this respect. On 13th November, 1929, he moved a Motion, which was passed unanimously:
That, in the opinion of this House, inquiry should be instituted into the desirability of so amending the Standing Orders relating to Private Business as to facilitate and shorten the proceedings on legislation promoted by local authorities and to lessen the heavy costs now incurred.
I have no doubt that the same principle is still actuating my right hon. Friend's attitude. I am afraid we shall have a lot of Bills of this kind which will place a strain on the legislative machinery of this House. Therefore, I hope that the Government before very long will be able to announce that not only have they the question of local government reformation under consideration, but will be able to give some indication of the general lines on which their mind is working.
As I said at the beginning, this is not a party problem but a problem of administration. I hope, even though it is late in this Parliament, that it may be possible to produce a White Paper of the kind produced towards the end of the war, setting out the problems to be solved and the suggestions of the Government as to how they should be tackled. I hope too that if ever we have to take a decision in this House, it will be possible for the Whips to be taken off, so that we can reach a free and unfettered decision on a matter which vitally affects so many people.

Mr. S. Marshall: rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. S. Marshall) seconded the Amendment, but he can speak again if he can obtain the leave of the House.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: We consulted. Mr. Speaker and he gave his Ruling, that my hon. Friend had only spoken to the main question. Now a new question is before the House, namely the Amendment, and therefore my hon. Friend has not exceeded his right to speak because he is speaking not on the main question but on the Amendment.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Speaker's note, which I have here, shows that the hon. Member seconded the Amendment. If he can obtain the leave of the House he can speak now.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. S. Marshall: It was under a misapprehension that I seconded the Amendment. I rather think my name was taken in error. I should like now to speak if I have the permission of the House.
The decision of the Minister to bring this Bill in has been received by local authorities all over the country, as he is very well aware, with a great deal of dismay. We have been waiting in local government circles for a review of local government itself. Many attempts have been made, and all seem to have been abortive or to have failed in one way or another. We had great hopes when the Commission was appointed that at last we should begin to see something in regard to the review of local authorities and their duties.
First of all, we understood quite distinctly when the Commission was appointed that their terms of reference and their duties were strictly confined to the question of areas. I remember meeting them at the very commencement soon after their appointment when they discussed with me and with my colleagues some points in regard to the work which lay before them. Subsequently we saw them again, and in my own county they reviewed part of it. We understood in the conference we had with them that they were dealing only with areas, and that the suggestions which they would in due course place before the Minister as regards methods and means would enable local authorities and local districts to have their areas and their boundaries adjusted in very simple fashion. Had the Commission stuck to the original terms of their appointment, the Minister would not have been in the House today asking us to pass this Bill which will dissolve the Commission.
The real reason why the Minister is asking us today to pass this Bill is because in the course of their work the Commission exceeded their duties. There is no doubt about it that the proposals of the Commission in the 1947 report frightened the Minister. I am quite sure they frightened everybody else, because if the Minister attempted for one moment to introduce legislation on the lines suggested by the Commission, he would have been, as the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) said, in the position


of a man who, having attempted to do something in regard to local government, found that the only thing which he could possibly do was to hurl himself off the cliffs of Dover. I hope that the Minister of Health will not be forced into that position.
It is very obvious to me that we should not have been asked to dissolve this Commission had the 1947 report been in a different shape. Very many of the proposals cut across recent legislation, especially in regard to education. The proposals made under that heading, had they been enacted, would have undone a great deal which the 1944 Act had already accomplished, and return education again to the smaller local authorities, equal to the old Part III authority, which we have abolished, and which would be the absolute negation of the Education Act of 1944. That is only one instance, but I am sorry that today we have been allowed to go into details of the proposals made by the Commission, because it is very obvious that we could not discuss them in their proper measure unless we had a great deal of time in which to do it.
It is very natural for Members to pick out their own districts and show how the proposals would adversely affect them. I cannot imagine any Member referring to the proposals if they did not adversely affect him or his district. As I have already said, had the Commission stuck to their original orders we should not be faced with this request by the Minister to cancel out the Commission.
There are a great many in this House, especially on this side of the House but also on the other side, who know something about local government and who are experienced in it. By dissolving the Commission very many cruel anomalies which exist in regard to the adjustment of boundaries will go on until I do not know when. The Minister has told us today that he has local government again under review, but it has been under review to my knowledge for 20 years and nothing has come out of it. No one can minimise the difficulties that face any Minister who has to introduce legislation and who wants to satisfy the local authorities in the country.
It is necessary that we should deal with the conditions and methods of local

government today. I am not one of those who believe that conditions obtaining in local government are as bad as is suggested by so many people. I know the position differs from county to county. It was so in regard to the Children Act. Some counties before that Act were in a very fortunate position in that they were able to do things which the poorer counties and the less happily circumstanced counties could not do. Therefore, it is very obvious that those poorer counties and those less happily circumstanced counties require the aid of the Ministry in enabling them to adjust their boundaries, and in assisting them in the work of local government.
I belong to a county where the Commissioners, after their review, declared that they could not recommend anything, because it seemed that the local authorities were at one. I am only instancing this because it is my own county. The local authorities certainly were at one in relation to the county council itself. Where I think review is very urgently necessary is in the duties which have been laid on local authorities by this Government during the last four years. Those duties have immensely increased in importance, and where the county councils have been charged with functions under various Acts, and where they have carried out their duties so that they could have the fullest assistance by delegation, I think the counties cannot be blamed for keeping in their hand the major portion of the local government of a county. By means of delegation the minor local authorities can have a full share in the administrative measures which today this Government have put upon county councils.
There are many things in the 1947 report which certainly would raise very great controversial issues if any Minister of Health attempted to put them into legislative form. That has evidently frightened the Minister into his present position in playing for safety and dissolving the Commission, whereas it would have been a far, far better thing had the Commission been kept alive and enabled to retain their original duties. In that way they would have given great satisfaction, particularly to counties and county districts all over the country who are needing assistance in the adjustment of their boundaries. I much regret that the Minister has not


been courageous enough to keep the commission in being, in spite of the fact that in their 1947 report they went outside their plain duty and made recommendations with some of which I, personally, violently disagree. They produced a situation which the Minister finds too difficult to face at this juncture.
In supporting the proposal in the Amendment I express the hope that the Minister will indicate at an early date measures by which these alterations can be made between one authority and another, without the cumbrous method which had to be followed under a previous Act, to which he is now going to return us, the Act of 1933. If he can do that he will give great satisfaction to local authorities, even without indicating that anything which the Commission reported in 1947 is likely to receive his attention for some time.
The only other point on which I should like the Minister to say something in his reply was mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary who, when he moved the Second Reading of the Bill, said that local government was under review now. The Parliamentary Secretary did not indicate who is making that review. Here is a Local Government Commission which was set up and which, I thought, was charged primarily with adjustment of boundaries as its first duty. Later on they were to be asked, I thought, to make other suggestions in regard to the adaptation of functions, but to deal slowly at first with boundaries. However, that is not to be the case, because that Commission is being abolished and the question of boundaries goes back to where it was seven or eight years ago. We are no better off, and in regard to functions we are still in the air. Unless the Minister can give us some assurance that the matter will be dealt with at an early stage, we are still in a state of suspension in regard to functions.
I have mentioned the new function which the Government have placed in the hands of local authorities, thus proving that the Government have faith to a very large extent in the present system of local government and its set-up. I hope that is so, and that when the Minister replies he will bear in mind the two or three points which I have raised and will try to answer them. It is difficult for the House to discuss anything

in the 1947 report. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some information about what he is going to do when the Commission is abolished in regard to an early and easy method of adjusting local government boundaries between district and district.

Mr. Sargood: In the statements made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. S. Marshall) he said repeatedly that the Government were placing upon the shoulders of local authorities more and more onerous and responsible duties. Is not that statement at variance with the election statements put out by the hon. Member and other members of his party at the recent county council election, charging the Government with trying to take away duties and responsibilities from local authorities?

Mr. Marshall: In no way at all. If the hon. Member, who lives in my district, had read the election literature he would have seen that it commended the Government in regard to the duties and responsibilities which had been placed upon the county councils. He would have seen that full recognition was given by this party to the fact that the functions placed upon local authorities were very commendable.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Messer: Perhaps I might first add my tribute to those already paid by many Members to Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve and to his Commission. As one who was at the time vice-chairman of the County Councils' Association and chairman of a county council, I was brought into close contact with him and I formed a very high opinion of his ability. I can understand how the situation came about in regard to the Commission. When this House was debating the Act which is now to be repealed, we were concerned with boundaries and paid little attention, I am sure, to what was involved in the rectification of boundaries. I regret that the Bill is necessary, but I quite understand that it is necessary, for the Commission was faced with the necessity of rectifying boundaries which affected services. It was very difficult for the Commission to rectify a boundary affecting a service and then to say that they could do nothing in regard to function.
The position is that we are responsible for giving the Commission a job which could not be carried out, because we had not looked at the consequences. We have to share the responsibility. It was one of the Measures that passed this House when we had a Coalition Government. We were not divided. We dealt with local government matters not from the party standpoint. I repeat that I can understand the reason for what happened while I regret its necessity.
The Commission has shown the very urgent need for the rectification of boundaries. Not many miles from this House it is possible to go along a main road and to go out of the county of Middlesex into the county of Hertfordshire and then into the county of Middlesex again. It is impossible for that kind of thing to continue for ever. We must look at this matter in the light of what is happening when we hear criticism of powers being taken away from some authorities. We must look at the matter in the light of the fact that there is an expanding social service.
The function of local government is the administration of social service. If we expand that social service we must devise some instrument by which that service can be managed. To attempt to do it within the present framework provides all sorts of hybrids such as the administration of the Education Act, 1944, with its excepted districts, divisional executives and nominal responsibility placed upon the county council and the county borough. We cannot escape it. We do not leave to an authority power to do a thing because it has got a name. The county council is the responsible authority for secondary education, primary education, nursery education, and further education, because it is a county council, but Canterbury is a county borough and it has exactly the same powers with a population of 25,000. That is absurd. Rutland is a county council with yet a smaller population. It is clear, therefore, that notwithstanding the repeal of the Measure it will be necessary for urgent attention to be given to the reform of local government in a comprehensive way.
Although I am a local authority man, I am not afraid, unlike some of my hon. Friends, of some services being taken

away from local authorities. As I have said in this House before, broadly speaking there are two types of social service. There is the social service which affects the people in the mass but not as individuals. That is a mechanistic social service, such as the provision of gas, water, electricity and things of that description. The service does not matter very much so long as it is economic, cheap, pure and in good supply. It is not a thing which affects the individual. That type of service can well be done by a regional authority. It does not matter how highly centralised it is, for from that centre the function can be decentralised in accordance with the building-up of the machine.
There is another type of social service which does not depend upon mere mechanical efficiency. It is the type of social service which affects the individual and the feelings of the individual. It is a type of service which is individual and personal, such as health, education and the welfare services. By some means we must reconcile the very difficult job of getting a big enough unit to ensure that there will be a high standard in policy, with the devolving of administration on the smallest unit to ensure that the job is done in the best possible way.
Human life is not measured by any mathematical formula. We do not live merely by eating and drinking but by feeling as well, and it is that part of us which is very important in regard to these social services. When reform is discussed, we shall be faced with the problem of having a large enough unit to ensure efficiency and within that machine a means whereby we can devolve on to the smallest unit of government the responsibility for the actual day-to-day work in that field, for that is important. It is not merely what is done that matters; it is the way in which it is done; but we cannot for a moment support the idea of improvement of these social services without recognising that there must be a change in the administration. In that change there is no reason why we should lose that personal and individual contact.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. Turton: I always listen to the speeches of the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) with great interest, although I


do not always agree with him. He has a wide experience of the problems of local government, but I believe he has made in some of his remarks an error into which other hon. Members on both sides of the House have also fallen during the Debate.
I believe that two problems are worrying local government in this country at present. There is the major problem of function and the area which is connected with function, and there is the minor problem of boundary rectification. The hon. Member put it very clearly when he instanced his motor drive from one county to another. I should have thought that that was the type of boundary rectification which it would be the proper duty of a Boundary Commission such as we are today dissolving to correct, as it is one which could not raise the whole question of function.
Hon. Members who were in the last Parliament will probably remember that when the Boundary Commission was set up, it was generally agreed by members of all parties that the bigger question of function and structure should be dealt with, as it should properly be, by the Government and that minor rectification should be remitted to the Commission. The hon. Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) described this as a machinery Bill which merely altered the administration. Mr. Arthur Jenkins, who was a very respected Member of this House and was then acting as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, made that quite clear when introducing the original Measure. He said that it was purely a machinery Measure. Somehow, since 1945, the purpose of the Commission has become changed and I believe that the man responsible for that is the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health. I believe that the great mistake made in the last five years—a mistake which has cost the country a great deal of money and time—was his outburst in the Committee stage of the Local Government Bill when he said:
Everyone who knows about local government feels it is nonsense to talk about functions and boundaries separately. They have to be taken together."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 16th December, 1947; col. 1705.]
If that is right—I admit that it is right on any major question of boundary and function, any detailed examination of a

one-tier or two-tier structure—clearly that will have with it alterations of boundaries, and that is a matter which only the Minister of Health can determine. However, the Minister then made the Boundary Commission think that because he had used those remarks in that Committee they had for that reason a duty to examine the question of function. That is made quite clear in their second report.

Mr. Bevan: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mislead the House and the country in that respect. When I made my statement in Committee, I had already had a conversation with the Boundary Commission, who brought to my notice at the time the fact that they were having very great difficulty in their investigations because they were not concerned with functions. I am now taxing my memory on the spur of the moment and cannot be exactly correct as to date, but I believe that before I made my statement we had already agreed that in their reports they could make reference to functions.

Mr. Turton: The right hon. Gentleman is no doubt accurate in his description of what he thought when he made the statement, but if he will again read the Report of the Local Government Boundary Commission for 1947, he will see that they attached to his words an importance which he is now trying to disavow.

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member must not falsify history in order to make me a whipping boy. If he will read the last paragraph of the introduction to the 1947 report, he will see:
Our experience amply confirms the statement made recently in Parliament.
In other words, the report was in process of compilation before my statement was made in Committee, and therefore the report is not the result of a statement made in Committee.

Mr. Turton: That was exactly the point I was putting. In their report the Boundary Commission attached an importance to the statement of the Minister which I cannot believe he intended at the time he delivered it. If he did intend it to have that meaning, there was only one possible action he could take and that was to wind up the Boundary Commission at that date. Why I say that he has wasted time and money is that if he really believes that


we could not alter boundaries without altering functions, the honourable course was to have come to this House in December, 1947, and to have dissolved the Boundary Commission on that date. Since then something like 677 conferences of local authorities have been held on the assumption that some good would come from the deliberations of the Boundary Commission.

Mr. Pannell: Does the hon. Member confirm that those consultations have been a waste of time and will not guide the Minister or another Government in the future?

Mr. Turton: If the hon. Gentleman will have patience, I will come to the question of those conferences later in my speech, I am dealing at the moment with the action which I believe the Minister should have taken if he believed that no minor adjustment could take place without any consideration of the question of function. I disagree with that statement which he made in Committee because I believe it to be only an imperfect appreciation of the problem and that we can rectify small boundary questions today without having to go into the question of function. Yet, as a result of this, we have had to wait for two valuable years while nothing has been done.
Now let me come to the question of what will happen to these small boundary alterations. As my interrupter said a minute ago, there have been 1,377 conferences in 80 groups. What will be the result of those conferences? In a number of cases throughout the country there are agreed proposals in the air or on paper. I listened with care to what was said by the Parliamentary Secretary in opening this Debate, and I understood that if it is a proposal which will require a county revision, it cannot take place until 1952. If I am incorrect, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will say so.

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member is right.

Mr. Turton: Then it means that any proposal which includes a proposal for a county revision has to be delayed for three years. I gathered from what the hon. Gentleman said about other proposals that, unless they had a degree of urgency connected with housing, the

Minister of Health would do all he could to prevent them from being put forward. That seems to be a serious state of affairs in the year 1949, four years after the end of the war, when many of the blitzed towns have not yet received the alteration of boundaries that they anticipated they would receive three years ago. What will happen to the proposals of Sunderland, Coventry and Southampton which have made a great deal of progress and to which they have nearly agreed solutions. Are they not to come forward at all? Let me give the House two other examples. I understand that at Bootle and Oldham agreed proposals have been put forward. The Oldham proposal involves some alteration of a county district; is it to be kept back until after 1952, because it has in it a proposal for the absorption of a rural district?
I ask the Government to reconsider this question of the the minor adjustments of boundaries. I believe it is wrong to place a straitjacket on local authorities while the Government are making up their minds on the wider question of function. There is no reason today why we should have the abnormalities of local government, which one finds here and there in Britain. of a non-county borough with a population of 877 and a penny rate raising only £12, or of the urban district councils where there is a council with a population of 840 and a penny rate raising £16. I cannot believe that there is any great division either in this Chamber or throughout the country against rectifying these abnormalities. It is quite true that both the illustrations I have given came from the Principality of Wales, and perhaps for that reason the Minister of Health wishes a straitjacket to continue in order to have those abnormalities at which he can jeer when he is trying to show the weaknesses of local government. I hope that the small adjustments which are so necessary to get good local government will be allowed to go forward now.
We have had from the Parliamentary Secretary no inkling of what would be the idea of the Government on the wider questions of function and structure, and I hope that when the Minister replies he will give some idea of his plans for local government. It is important, because there are most curious ideas going round the country. The "Hereford Times" of 5th October had a report which I hope


the Minister has read and which, in case he has not, I will read to him. It said:
that the right hon. Gentleman had stated to a deputation which had waited on him that it was his intention that all the small authorities should go out of existence, that a population of something round about 100,000 was the minimum that would be considered, and that the government of the localities concerned would in future be vested in Regional Councils.
That report appeared in a paper which has a wide circulation and it connected those views with the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Bevan: I daresay. There is no limit to the capacity of the British newspaper to invent stories. What is the authority for the statement?

Mr. Turton: This authority was given by a leading officer of a local authority, and this is a report of what he said as a result of his deputation to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Bevan: Does he refer to the deputation?

Mr. Turton: I should have thought that the Press officers of the right hon. Gentleman would have noticed—

Mr. Bevan: rose—

Mr. Turton: Surely I am allowed to finish a sentence, even by the right hon. Gentleman? The Minister may not have read this report in the "Hereford Times" of 5th October. Furthermore, I understand that it was in other papers as well, though I have only seen the "Hereford Times," and neither the right hon. Gentleman nor anyone on his behalf has contradicted it.

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member gave me no notice that he would make this statement. With his usual recklessness he has not stated which is the local authority concerned, what was the deputation, and who was the official of the local authority who made the statement. It really is mischievous to set these things going without any sense of responsibility.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Since it is important that these matters should be checked, the local authority in question is the Hereford City Council, it is in the minutes of the finance and general purposes committee, it was a report by the mayor, who attended the

meeting, and that was reported in "Berrow's Worcester Journal" on 7th October, 1949 It could not be more categorical.

Mr. Bevan: I am glad that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has given me those particulars. All I can say is that that report is absolutely and utterly untrue.

Mr. Turton: That was why I drew it to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. It is valuable that at this time he should make quite clear on what lines the Government are thinking—we do not want the details at the moment—because there is going round the country a mass of suggestion that the form of government would be in this direction. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman has a publicity service that does not draw his attention to what the weekly papers are saying about deputations.

Mr. Bevan: I cannot follow up every lie.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: It is not a question of a lie or of the Minister's favourite whipping boy, the Press. This is a statement by the mayor of a local authority.

Mr. Bevan: And I am saying that if I cannot rely on members of local authority deputations to make accurate statements, I will have shorthand writers present in future.

Mr. Turton: In the case of the right hon. Gentleman, that would be a very good innovation and I recommend him to do it. Some time he may find it very odd to read the recording of the shorthand writer at the end of a rather turgid speech.
The position is that a very valuable method of adjusting boundaries—which in 1945, if I remember aright, the Minister of Health said was an inexpensive and speedy way of doing so—is being done away with. In its place we are to have a situation in which it will be very difficult for any local authority to alter its boundaries for the next three years. Not only that; if they are able to bring forward their proposals, they will be expensive. The Private Bill procedure is a costly one. I recall the case of a corporation which had to spend some £20,000 a few years ago in getting its boundaries


altered. That corporation today is anxious to extend its boundaries.
I ask the Government to consider this matter of small adjustments, especially agreed adjustments. If the present Local Government Boundary Commission is to be dissolved, cannot there be set up in its place another similar small body which will do this work? The hon. Member for South Tottenham, in discussing the Bill in 1945, said it was far better that the task should be undertaken by a commission of independent persons than to rely on people who were themselves in local government. I have never liked the system which is laid down in Section 146 of the Local Government Act, 1933. I have profound respect for county councils, but they are not the best bodies to review their own county districts. Rural and urban district councils have the feeling that county councils must to some extent be biased when considering adjustments of rural districts within their area.
Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve has done a very good job as Chairman of the Local Government Boundary Commission, but he has not been well treated. If I were to write to the Minister, by whom I had been appointed on 24th November, asking for an indication of his views on a report which I had made, and if I had no reply for four months and then received one signed by the Permanent Secretary merely drawing my attention to a Question which had been asked in Parliament four days previously, I should feel that I had received scant courtesy from the Minister.
There has been collected for the Boundary Commission a very good team of personnel, both from local government, from Government Departments and from other sources. What is to be the future of these men? I find in the Bill no provision for compensation to them for loss of office. They are suddenly to be dismissed, and I ask the Minister to refer to this question when he replies. Whoever is responsible for the dissolution of the Commission, it would be wrong if Parliament did not treat these men with generosity and justice, and I regret that no mention of them has been made. I hope that the Minister will make the appropriate amendment.
It is my view that the Minister is responsible for the failure of the Commission. He gave them most ambiguous

terms of reference in 1945 when he talked of
individually and collectively to make effective and convenient units.
That was something quite different from what was planned in the 1945 Measure. He has failed to give any answer to the reports which the Commission have consistently given him and now, when he comes to dissolve them, he does not himself explain the Measure he is introducing.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Benn Levy: Of all the speeches which have been made on behalf of the Opposition, I should say that that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) was easily the most potent and logical. We are accustomed, after four years, for the credit of Parliament to be maintained by hon. Members on this side of the House undertaking the functions of opposition in addition to the functions of Government, and I am glad that my hon. Friend has sustained that patriotic duty today.
The nadir of Opposition speeches, however, was surely reached by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) who resorted to retailing allegations and imputations whose accuracy he does not appear even to have bothered to check and whose authorship he was not, apparently, even prepared to disclose until his own leader extricated him from the unpleasant situation by revealing the facts and inviting from the Minister a blunt refutation.

Mr. Turton: Will the hon. Member say where I have been inaccurate?

Mr. Levy: I did not say that the hon. Gentleman had been inaccurate in his statement. What I said was that he had quoted inaccurate allegations and had apparently taken no trouble to confirm their accuracy and was not even disposed to disclose their authorship. That is a standard of debate which is not very desirable.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Surely, the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Levy) is doing himself an injustice. Chapter and verse of the most categorical kind were given and the Minister was grateful for it. Nothing could be more categorical than the statement of a mayor to his own city council.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Which mayor?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The Mayor of Hereford.

Mr. Levy: If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had been listening instead of talking to his neighbour when I was speaking on this point, he would have noticed that I said, not that chapter and verse were never divulged, but that it was left to him to divulge them.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The hon. Member cannot get away with that. He said that my hon. Friend had quoted inaccurate information and made reckless statements. Nothing more definite could be made than the statement by the mayor, Alderman Piggott, who had attended a meeting with the Minister of Health, relating that they had received certain information and reported publicly in the local Press.

Mr. Levy: I must return the words of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself—he cannot get away with that. He is really quite acute enough to make the distinction, which is apparent to every other Member in the House, that I did not accuse the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton of being inaccurate. I accused him of quoting an inaccurate statement. The distinction was perfectly plain.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: rose—

Hon. Members: He will do it all night.

Mr. Burden: He has the same brief.

Mr. Levy: The hon. and gallant Gentleman will have an opportunity, no doubt, of refuting me later.
What is clear from the Debate is that the Opposition speeches have by-passed, either deliberately or by a convenient accident, two very simple, self-evident facts and their consequences. One is that the time for a radical reconstruction of local government is due. That, as a matter of fact, was mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) when he quoted a right hon. Friend of mine during his speech; he did not, however, pursue the consequences of that suggestion.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The hon. Member himself is now a little inaccurate: I am not "right hon."

Mr. Levy: I am sorry: I anticipated. The other point on which the Opposition speeches have been strangely silent is that admittedly the Boundary Commission is not an instrument adequate to the purpose of radical reconstruction. That point was made very clear by a quotation from the report of the Boundary Commission itself by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Symonds). If those two things are true, surely it is logical and sensible to wind up the Commission until such time as there shall be a review and definite specific radical proposals for reconstruction; because it would be idle, wasteful and inconvenient to have simultaneously going on two investigating bodies both with their recommendations, and it will also obviously be undesirable to have reconstructions and changes put into effect and then perhaps revised subsequently a very short time later.
I wish to say a word or two about the nine or ten non-county boroughs already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge. I understand that my right hon. Friend has already received a deputation on behalf of those non-county boroughs, an all-party deputation, and they were received by the Minister in a mood of characteristic amenability which I trust will not have evaporated by this evening. My right hon. Friend realises that for these non-county boroughs this Bill represents a set-back to their hopes—I do not say a demolition of their hopes, but a set-back. They were hoping for an enhanced status. I realise that in local government particularly there is such a thing as the disease of imperial expansion and there are often local ambitions which are hard to justify in the general interest; but there are also ambitions which are perfectly justifiable and are in the interest of local government.
It is on those grounds that I want to bring this point to the attention of the Minister. There is, after all, an optimum size for the carrying out of given functions in local government and indeed an optimum size was set down in one of the reports of the Boundary Commission for what they called "most purposes" boroughs. That size was fixed at between 60,000 and 200,000. What we are discussing is not so much a piece of legislation but a hiatus in legislation, a lacuna prior to legislation. I have no objection


to that, but there is an exception contained in paragraph 1 of the Schedule to the Bill which specifies an alteration from the pre-1945 position and inserts the figure of 100,000 instead of 75,000. What is alarming about the present Bill is that, although it is a Bill generally for restoring the status quo before 1945, there is this one exception.
That is the fact which has caused alarm to these nine or ten non-county boroughs and I ask the Minister to give certain assurances when he replies to the Debate. We are putting down no Amendment, but I ask for a general assurance. Will he tell us that in his view the figure of 100,000 is not a magical or sacrosanct figure? I do not know what reasons there have been for changing the figure from 75,000 to 100,000. There may be reasons and we may hear them tonight, but if my right hon. Friend will assure us that they are not irrevocable reasons, that assurance would be worth having.
The second assurance I should like is this. After all, the Commission is a respectable, able body. Its abolition is not a reflection on its capacity in any sense, and therefore the recommendations already made ought still to carry force whatever reconstruction is undertaken. I ask my right hon. Friend to tell us that those recommendations, particularly in respect of the nine or ten non-county boroughs, for enhanced status will carry with him or, if by that time he is occupying some other office, will carry with his successor at least the weight which should properly be attached to the recommendations of this Commission.

6.36 p.m.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I feel alarm at the way in which this matter has been brought before us today. I should have thought that the Minister, having made recommendations to the Commission, the Commission having found those recommendations to their liking—although it may have been that they used the recommendations to produce something to the Minister's dislike—and the Minister having given them an indication which encouraged them up the garden path, would have taken steps to see that they walked up the right path. But I cannot help thinking the Minister was rather responsible for seeing that

they walked up the wrong path. That being the case, it may be that the course he first attempted to encourage is one that he should have continued to maintain.
I have very great sympathy for the right hon. Gentleman. He is faced, in a matter of a few weeks, by a General Election in which he will have to fight very hard, and no doubt he wishes to make a great name for himself. Nothing could be more fatal than that he should give the slightest indication of his personal views, or the views of His Majesty's Government, on what sort of suggestions should be made, what guidance should be given or proposals framed for a body which is about to review the question of local government.
It is significant that today we are debating an issue which immediately raises the identical issue which we had to discuss only two days ago on the question of the Parliament Bill. There we had to discuss the relation of structure and function. Here again we are thinking in terms of the very great difficulty of taking a decision as to whether we can separate the problem of structure from that of function. On the former occasion, we had to listen to profound statements as to the possibility of considering structure or whether we had to consider function first. I wonder which line the Minister is taking on this issue. Which does he put first? Does he put function first, or structure first? Can he give an indication in that respect?
It is that sort of question which is holding up any sort of hope on the part of smaller local government bodies that anything will be done to put them in a position in which they can see ahead at all. It is all very well for those who take part in the deliberations of vast local government bodies not to feel very worried about it, but they need not feel anything like as worried as smaller bodies. I am not saying that the smaller rural district councils were happy with the recommendations of the Commission. I assure the Minister, though I am sure he is perfectly well aware of it, that the rural district councils are profoundly dissatisfied with their present position. They face the future with dismay. They are not the only dissatisfied people. All the smaller local government bodies are completely dissatisfied. They are completely


without knowledge of where they will stand in a few months' or years' time. They have no guidance, no hope, no comfort from the Minister, who is destroying a body which, while it may have been right or wrong in the past, at least held out some hope that the problem was to be under continuous and strenuous examination. That is all to go. We are asked to agree to that body being removed, and nothing else is to happen.
The Minister told the House not long ago that the whole matter is under review. When the results of that review will fructify, we do not know. They will not fructify or even germinate, I suppose, before the General Election. Germination would be far too dangerous a stage of development so near a General Election. When they will fructify, goodness knows. I ask the Minister whether he cannot at least give some guidance as to what this reviewing body is, what it is looking into and what it is reviewing? Is it reviewing the question of structure in the wider sense or only in the narrower sense, or is it to review the question of function whatever the structure may be? Can we not have some sort of information about it? It would help the House in its consideration of this problem today.
I feel sure that the Minister wishes to be kind, although it is almost impossible for us on this side of the House to believe it, so in all kindness let him say something soon which has some meaning for the smaller local government bodies; that is only fair and right. Never will the Minister be able to claim that he has helped local government in any sense, if he leaves the position in the purgatory in which it is in respect of these bodies. How can he expect the best candidates to come forward and serve on these local government bodies when their whole future is indeterminate? The Minister descended with great rapidity from the Welsh mountains down a Welsh valley. Has he lost his impetus? Is he now no longer capable of anything constructive in thought or action? Here is an opportunity. Let him get on with the job.

6.43 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Reid: I strongly support the Bill, because I think it is absolutely necessary. We were told by the Parliamentary Secretary that there is to be a review of local government. I

have no doubt that that review will refer not merely to boundaries but will go to the heart of the whole matter and review the whole construction and set-up of local government in this country. Comparing it with other countries and local government there, with which I have been associated, my opinion is that this review is overdue. The simplification and reconstruction of local government in this country is greatly overdue.
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said that the Minister will keep these local government bodies in a straitjacket for a long time to come. They have been in a straitjacket for a long time in the past and they have managed to survive. It would be wise for them to continue as they are until the new system of local government is evolved. If we now go on tinkering with boundaries and keeping distinguished men at work on the question of boundaries and evolving solutions in regard to boundaries which may all be swept away as soon as the new system of local government is introduced, it seems to me it would be a futile proceeding. If, on the other hand, there are desperate cases of the straitjacket, the procedure of private legislation can be followed as in the past. Accordingly I cannot understand the opposition to this Bill, having listened to most of the speeches.
I wish to make a few remarks about the town which I have the honour to represent. The population of Swindon is about 70,000. Swindon is in a very peculiar position. It is the only big town in Wiltshire. It has probably one of the most progressive and advanced systems of local government of any town or city in the country. That has always been so whichever party has been in power. It is remarkable that Swindon has had from both parties men with the most progressive ideas, and the administration of the town is a credit to the whole South-West of England. Swindon, which is a non-county borough, wishes to extend its boundaries and become a county borough. But if the Schedule to the Bill is retained, the figure of 100,000 will be stipulated as a dividing line between the county and non-county boroughs. When the new system of local government is devised there may be county boroughs or non-county boroughs


—we do not know what there may be and what the functions of all the various bodies may be.
So I do not press for a change in the figure of 100,000 which is laid down in the Schedule but I ask the Minister to state, so far as this Government is concerned, that when the new set-up is brought before the House and the country the fact that this figure of 100,000 is mentioned in the Schedule will not in any way prejudice the case of towns such as Swindon, which are now on the verge of county borough status. I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that this figure will in no way prejudice the decision of the Government in drawing up a new system of local government.

6.47 p.m.

Mr. Challen: I rise merely to echo some remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and also I think by one or two other speakers on the subject of the work done not only by Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve whom many of us know and admire and value his work, but by the staff of the Boundary Commission. I do not propose to enter into the lists in relation to the general argument but I ask the Minister for some assurance as to the treatment to be accorded to the very experienced and expert staff who have been engaged on this work for a long time. Whatever reviews of machinery the Minister proposes to set up the work this staff has been doing must continue.
Are they to be dismissed at a moment's notice without any kind of compensation or provision being made? Cannot we have an assurance from the Minister, when he addresses the House on this subject, that not only fair and just treatment will be meted out to all those who have been engaged on this work, but that they will continue in this important work and be treated in the way in which this House and the Country would wish. Here is a body set up by Act of Parliament and the Minister comes down and destroys it. He cannot do so without giving a proper undertaking to the House that those who have been engaged on the work shall be properly protected.

6.49 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Davies: The Minister of Health and the Parliamentary

Secretary have both stressed the fact that if this Boundary Commission is dissolved, we return to the status quo as regards the changes to be brought about either in the boundaries or status of local authorities. I wish to make a plea this evening for one class of local authority which are, in effect, in a worse position because the Boundary Commission was appointed and because its dissolution is now proposed. I am speaking, of course, of the position of those urban district councils which, because of their growth in size and importance, wish to present petitions to become municipal boroughs, that is, to be granted charters of incorporation as municipal boroughs.
As my right hon. Friend knows, the war caused a postponement of any presentation of petitions to raise the status of urban district councils, and immediately the Boundary Commission was appointed, in effect a stand-still was reached. The position was such that petitions were not presented by any urban district, because it knew that if one was presented there was no possibility of it being granted. The reasons were that there was no wish to embarrass the Commission in the event of its being called upon to deal with the areas which had only recently been incorporated; that is to say, if a petition were presented, the Commission would have to accept the fact that that was considered to be a suitable area; and also, presumably, because it was desired to avoid the same problem of determination of the area being dealt with both through a petition and by the Commission itself.
There are, further, certain technical difficulties as regards a change of boundaries of a municipal borough as opposed to an urban district. This advice not to seek petitions given to the urban district councils which had been intending to do so was given informally to the local councils and they acted upon that advice. What I wish to point out to the Minister is that, in my view, the repeal of the Act we are now debating ought to remove these difficulties, and the position ought to revert to the 1933 Act. Under the 1933 Act any urban district council could seek to petition for a grant of incorporation as a municipal borough and that was considered by the King in Council. In practice, it was considered by a Committee of the Council, on which the Minister of


Health served, and the King, in the exercise of his prerogative, decided whether or not to grant the petition. But it has been made clear by the Lord President of the Council, in reply to a Parliamentary Question which I put to him earlier this Session, that whereas the position in theory was that these petitions could now be presented, in practice he stated:
… I cannot hold out any hope that His Majesty would be advised to grant a charter save in very exceptional circumstances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th July, 1949; Vol. 467, c. 22.]
These local councils who have been seeking to ascertain what would be considered as exceptional circumstances have ascertained that it would not be considered an exceptional circumstance if these urban districts had grown in size and importance and were seeking a change of status purely on these lines. Those were the normal reasons for seeking a change of status. As a consequence it is not possible for an urban district council, however large it is today, to have any hope that a petition to improve its status to become a municipal borough will be granted.
I should like to give an instance by referring to the town which I have the honour to represent in this House. The town of Enfield has been prevented from obtaining recognition of its importance as a local government unit by a grant of incorporation, which, in my view and in the view of the citizens of Enfield, its size and importance merit. Enfield was considering presenting a petition as early as 1936. At that time its population was in excess of 70,000. Since then its population has grown to 110,000 and it is continuing to increase. Enfield is an urban district twice the size of an average urban district, and if it is compared in population and in rateable value it is the second largest urban district in the country. Harrow is the only urban district which exceeds Enfield in population.
Here is an urban district which is larger than 90 per cent. of the existing boroughs. This has been recognised by the redistribution under the Representation of the People Act, as it is to have two Members of Parliament to represent it after that Act comes into force. So it may be well understood that where there is an urban district of this size

and importance it is not just to the citizens to ask them to refrain any longer from seeking to improve their status. I therefore urge the Minister to consider whether it is possible to reverse his decision, and whether he can hold out any hope of any urban district changing its status at the present time. Where there are reasonable or sound reasons for doing so, that should be done.
I know that there is not a great deal of difference in functions and powers between a municipal borough and an urban district in these days, but I know that he will understand how strongly the citizens of these large urban districts, of which Enfield is one, feel in this matter. I ask whether he can give us an assurance that he will take this matter into consideration when he is considering the effect of this Bill; and whether he will change his decision and enable such towns as Enfield to present their petitions in the hope that they will be granted.

6.56 p.m.

Major Legge-Bourke: The point which really divides those who support the original Motion today and those who support the Amendment is a fairly simple one, although extremely important. As I see it, those who are in favour of the repeal of this Local Government Act are those who say that, because the Boundary Commission found that in order to do what it was originally requested to do, it would be necessary to consider things outside its terms of reference, therefore it is better to wind up the Boundary Commission altogether. We, on the other hand, say that there were some powers of the Boundary Commission contained in that Local Government Act which might well continue in being, although none of us would disagree with those who say that there is a very considerable field for reform in local government.
The hon. Member for Enfield (Mr. Ernest Davies) has made in the main a constituency speech, and I do not blame him for so doing as he was on very sound ground. But there is no reason on earth why he should want to wind up the Boundary Commission and repeal this Act in order to achieve what he desires. If the Minister is prepared to tell us what he proposes to do as far as the form of local government is concerned, many of the points made by the hon. Gentleman might


be met, and he might find himself able to support the Amendment.
I am a little disturbed about this particular Act being repealed, because I have been looking at the Act. I do not think anybody has mentioned the contents of the Act since this Debate bean. It seems to me that the only thing for which this Act is being repealed is that the Minister, in agreement with the Boundary Commission, has come to the conclusion that one paragraph of one Section is no longer possible of implementation by the Commission. That paragraph is Section 2, subsection (1 b), where is states:
The Commission shall have power to unite a county with another county, or a county borough with another county borough, or to unite a non-county borough with another non-county borough, or an urban or rural district with another district, whether urban or rural, or to include an urban or rural district in a non-county borough or any county district in a county borough.
If we read the reports of the Boundary Commission, it is fairly clear that that particular provision was the real stumbling block. They found they could not do it only on the basis of altering boundaries but that they had to consider functions as well. Surely just because we find that one Section, or a part of one Section, in an Act is not workable in the present circumstances, we do not want to repeal the whole Act? It seems to be madness. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) pointed out, there are local authorities which are most anxious for some of the recommendations of the Boundary Commission which involve only alterations of boundaries to be put into effect. In Section 2 there are other powers given to the Boundary Commission which I think would cover the very point in question.
There was some dispute during my hon. Friend's speech between him and the Minister about whether or not the Minister had aimed at confining local authorities to an area with a population of 100,000. My hon. Friend quoted from the "Hereford Times." If that quotation is compared with what is said in the 1946 Report, I do not think there is very much difference. The report said:
One of the general principles laid down for our guidance …
I presume that was laid down by the Minister—

… is that, without limiting our discretion by reference to population figures, an order uniting a county with another county should not, in the absence of substantial agreement, ordinarily be made unless the population of the smaller county is less than 100,000.
The same figure is mentioned. That is not so very different from the quotation given by my hon. Friend which said that it was the Minister's intention that all the small authorities should go out of existence and that a population of round about 100,000 was the minimum to be considered.

Mr. Blenkinsop: There is all the difference in the world between the extinction of a small local authority and the proposals referred to there.

Major Legge-Bourke: The Parliamentary Secretary thinks so. It appears to me that the quotation from the "Hereford Times" is but an intensified way of saying what is in this report. That is a matter of opinion, I agree.

Mr. Warbey: The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to the union of counties. He has said nothing whatever about county districts, for example.

Major Legge-Bourke: I agree. The figure of 100,000 for a local authority is mentioned and there is a definite impression in the country that the Minister is aiming at setting up regional organisations with 100,000 as the basic population. If hon. Members disagree, I will point out that the Minister could easily say what he intends to do. That is what we ask him to do now.
My own constituency is very much interested because in the 1947 Report there was a recommendation that the Isle of Ely should be combined with the Soke of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon. Some hon. Members have said that they want the recommendations given by the Commission so far, still to have some force. I would say that I hope that they will not have very much force. In the area I have mentioned, that is the general desire. It has been established beyond doubt that the Boundary Commission found itself compelled to consider matters which were beyond the original terms of reference, but I do not consider that that could be said to be a good reason for repealing the Act.
That is the fundamental issue today. That is what we shall vote about—


whether or not, just because the Boundary Commission found that it was limited by its terms of reference from really effectively dealing with this problem which was a pressing one, we ought to wind up the Commission and repeal the Act. I submit that the case has not been made today, but that a case has been made for the Amendment which suggests that we should keep this Act in being and use all the parts which are still good. We shall then press the Minister and his successor to let us know what proposals they have for local government in order to bring them into operation as soon as possible, so long as we are satisfied that they are the right ones.

7.6 p.m.

Mr. Warbey: I rather regret that the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke), like many other hon. Members opposite, has imported into this Debate a degree of personal and political prejudice which is not appropriate to a discussion on a subject of an essentially non-party character and which ought to be conducted on a rational level. We have had speech after speech in which hon. Members opposite, out of their known dislike and fear of the Minister of Health, have sought to load upon him the blame for everything that has gone wrong in the sphere of local government during the past five or 10 years. He is blamed by some hon. Members opposite for not having been the sole dissenting voice when this House unanimously passed the Local Government (Boundary Commission) Act in 1945.
He is blamed for what one hon. Member opposite described as leading the Boundary Commission up the garden path. I think it is clear from the Boundary Commission Report of 1947 that the Commission was going up that path long before the Minister had anything to say in the Committee to which reference has been made. The right hon. Gentleman has been blamed because the Boundary Commission has not felt able to do the job which this House decided to give it under the terms of reference which this House gave it. Moreover, he is blamed for not issuing immediate contradictions of every cheap rumour and sensational story which has spread

throughout the columns of the hundreds of Tory newspapers in this country.
Finally, we have the hon. and gallant Member who tries to drag in again this already twice and thrice contradicted assertion that my right hon. Friend is in favour of the extinction of the smaller local authorities. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is completely confused about the matter, because the reference which he quoted referred only to the union of counties, and to try to extend that conception to cover all the smaller local authorities throughout the country, and to suggest that my right hon. Friend is in favour of extinguishing them, is a complete distortion of the issue.
I must add my regrets to those expressed by other hon. Members that so much work put in during the last four years by the Boundary Commission has led to so little action—in fact, to no action at all. We have had some extremely valuable reports, excellent surveys and some conferences which will produce valuable matter for future reference. Above all, in the Report of 1947, we have had some really remarkable and courageous suggestions regarding the whole structure and functions of local government. But we have had no orders. The Boundary Commission has not done the job for which it was set up. I certainly do not think that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health can be blamed in any sense for that. The Local Government Boundary Commission found that for various reasons it could not do the job which it was asked to do. In fact, it made clear in its final Report of 1948 that it would only continue to do the work for which it was set up if it was allowed to assume that it could do its work on the basis of the Report which it had submitted the previous year and which had not even been considered by this House. If hon. Members will look at paragraph 8 of the 1948 Report, they will find what I think is a rather remarkable statement. The Boundary Commission begins by saying:
… it is now our duty to proceed with our work on the basis of the existing statute law and of the General Principles laid down for our guidance.
Nevertheless, at the end of the paragraph, we find this:
Accordingly we now intend to select those cases in which the Order would be both appropriate under the existing statute law and General Principles, and also, so far as we can


judge, appropriate if either the law or the General Principles were amended on the lines recommended in our Reports or in some similar manner.
It is rather a remarkable thing that a Commission set up by an Act of Parliament and under regulations approved by this House should, first of all, exceed its terms of reference and present a very valuable Report, and then go on to say that it intends to vary these terms of reference in accordance with its own Report which has not been considered by this House. I agree entirely with the tribute that has been paid to Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve and the other members of the Boundary Commission, but surely it comes very near to pointing a pistol at the head of the Minister and saying: "Either you and the House of Commons agree to what we are intending to do in regard to changes in structure and functions and all the rest, or we cannot go on with the job which we have been appointed to do." Under those conditions, what else could the Minister do but advise the dissolution of the Boundary Commission and a thorough review of the whole question of local government?
I do not want to say any more on the general question now, nor, indeed, about matters particularly affecting my own constituency. As far as Luton is concerned, I hope that it may not be necessary for me to say anything at all in this House when the matter is brought up by my local authority by way of a Private Bill. I do not see why anybody should feel inclined or called upon to oppose Luton in her just claim to county borough status, and therefore I hope that no opposition or discussion on the floor of this House will be necessary, but, should it be, I shall be ready to state the case on that occasion.
I conclude by putting two questions to the Minister in regard to the Schedule. The first is in regard to paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Schedule, in which county councils are forbidden to taken certain action in regard to a change of boundaries until after the end of 1951. I wonder if my right hon. Friend could tell us what is the virtue of this particular date, and whether it means that it is the firm intention of this Government, so far as it is within their power—and I am sure it will be within their power—that

a complete review and reorganisation of local government shall have been completed and carried into effect by the end of 1951.
Secondly, in regard to the first paragraph of the Schedule, I would merely say that, as I understand it, Section 139 of the Local Government Act of 1933 will be in force when this Bill is passed in a form which will permit local authorities with a population of more than 100,000 to promote Private Bills for the constitution of boroughs as county boroughs. It is clear from the introduction of this Section into the Schedule that, while in other cases the Minister is suspending the power of the local authorities to make changes, in this case he is leaving the door open to make these changes by way of Private Bills.

7.16 p.m.

Mr. George Porter: I hope the hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Warbey) and the House will not expect me to deal with the Bill in general, for that is not my intention in intervening in this Debate. I want to raise only one point with the Minister for the purpose of elucidation or interpretation.
I am given to understand that this matter is disturbing the minds of quite a number of local authorities in the country, and the local authority of which I had the honour to be a member for a number of years has written to me and asked that I should raise this particular point. On looking at the Bill before us and the Act of 1945, I find that the matter which I am about to raise is not mentioned—the question of the granting of charters of incorporation. This particular matter is covered by Section 129 of the 1933 Act, which has reference entirely to applications for or the granting of charters of incorporation. I am given to understand that, while that Section still remains in operation and will continue to remain in operation, there have been interpretations of it or instructions given about it enabling Departments to determine the relationship in regard to particular claims that may be made by local authorities up and down the country.
In this intervention, which I make purely because the point has been submitted to me by my local authority, it would perhaps be as well if I used the phraseology of the letter which has been


sent to me, and if I leave it there for the comment which may be made by the Minister. In the letter which I received from the Huyton-with-Roby District Council, the clerk wrote:
Ordinarily, it is customary for a district, before sending in a formal petition, to make a preliminary inquiry through the Clerk of the Privy Council as to whether the claim is sufficiently strong to justify the trouble of going through with the formalities. Since the Government's announcement of their decision to abolish the Boundary Commision and restore Sections 129–138 of the Local Government Act 1933, which permits an urban or a rural district to seek a Charter, a whole crowd of the larger districts, who have been waiting for 10 years owing to the war and the period of the Boundary Commission, have sounded the Privy Council, or have had questions raised in Parliament, and the answer in all cases has been most unsatisfactory from the point of view of the local authorities, viz.—that, in the present uncertainty of local government, caused by the dissolution of the Boundary Commission, Charters are likely to be considered only in exceptional circumstances, and, since Harrow, with a population of 215,000 and three Members of Parliament, have been told that it is not a sufficiently acceptable case to justify what has already been possessed for centuries by Montgomery with a population of 877, it can safely be assumed that the civil servants who deal with these matters have looked up the word 'exceptional' in a dictionary which is not possessed by me.
There are local authorities which want to enhance their reputation in regard to local government, not just from a spectacular point of view but for the purpose of increasing their use as a local authority. I hope the Minister will remove any doubts which may exist as to the treatment which these authorities who make application for a charter will receive at the hands of his Department.

7.21 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: I am sure that the Minister, whether the Boundary Commission be reprieved or liquidated, will agree that this Debate has been of considerable value in enabling him to ascertain the feeling which exists in the House on the matter of the drawing and re-drawing of local government boundaries. I think it has emerged so far that there is a good deal of agreement between the two sides of the House on the general principles. I felt, for instance, that the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. G. Porter) made a point of considerable importance which I, at any rate, would endorse.
I feel that one of the most valuable contributions that we have had so far came from the hon. Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). I am sure that the House was pleased to hear him speak on the subject of local government, if only on hereditary grounds. We recall that his respected father was Minister of Health in a previous administration. The hon. Gentleman also spoke to us from some municipal experience of his own, interrupted I understand for the time being through the action of the electors in the Borough of Hampstead last May. The hon. Gentleman is young, and I have no doubt that he will find his way back to some local authority before long.
I find myself in strong agreement with two points which the hon. Gentleman put to us. The first was his regret that this subject of local government boundary redistribution had not been tackled much earlier in the lifetime of this Parliament. I understood him to say that in his view the cart had been placed with considerable firmness in front of the horse, and that he would have liked to see this matter cleared up and new alignments firmly drawn before the question of redistribution of the Parliamentary seats had been tackled. I think there is a great deal to be said for that point of view. It is, after all, a difficult and confusing situation where there is a difference between a municipal and Parliamentary electoral boundary. I have come across it myself more than once. There is confusion in the minds of the electors and it also throws no small spanner into the electoral machinery. There is no doubt that when we have got accustomed to the present redistribution—a rather painful process—we shall be confronted with a redistribution of local boundaries which will in its turn demand a further Parliamentary redistribution with all the upheaval that it causes. I am, therefore, in agreement with the hon. Member for Heywood and Radcliffe on that point.
I would also support the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members on both sides of the House who have spoken on the subject of the non-county boroughs. A number of speeches have been made from Members with local experience on the subject. Mine will be no exception


because it so happens that in my constituency there are two of the oldest non-county boroughs in the country, one of them receiving its charter in the 13th century. It is now a small non-county borough. That is the Borough of Hedon, which existed long before the City of Hull and the ancient borough of Beverley, which is, so to speak, the capital of the Holderness Division.
I urge the right hon. Gentleman, when he considers this matter, to pay the most urgent attention to an element in our life which, I think, can never be exaggerated. That is the feeling of local patriotism—awkward, I know, to national administrators, but none the less firmly embedded. I have no doubt that he will recall, as I do, the attempt which was made immediately after the First World War to extend the boundaries of the London County Council to embrace certain areas in urban district councils lying outside, going as far north, I think, as Barnet. There was immediately an uprising by people with all kinds of political views in those areas at the idea of being brought into this huge organisation. I remember very well a phrase used at the time—I forget by whom, but it gained some currency—that the whale never swallows the sardine to the benefit of the sardine. I thought it was sound then, and I think it is sound now.
I think there is in the small local authorities a very strong feeling of local patriotism and unity, sometimes, I have no doubt, carried to an extent which can be criticised. I was reading only the other day in the local paper of the town in which I was born how two urban district councils which were amalgamated under the 1933 Act, which is a long time ago, were still engaged in bitter controversy as to which of them should have a new public clock erected. In fact, the controversy is now on the level of Debates when the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health speaks in winding up. Great controversy seems to have arisen, with hard feelings.
It is of the highest importance that the non-county boroughs should retain their identity and, indeed, their powers of local government. It has been said by hon. Members on both sides that this is not a party question. I do not think it is. For that reason I am going to give an

instance of something which happened under the Education Act, 1944, so that I cannot be accused on this occasion of making an attack upon the right hon. Gentleman. I felt, and I still feel, that the handling of the non-county boroughs under that Act was unfortunate. I was unable to be here at the time, but I did make the strongest representations to the then Minister of Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler). I still feel, and I urge upon the right hon. Gentleman before he embarks on any reorganisation of local government, that delegation is no substitute for direct government by the local authority. What so often happens is that the larger unit, a county, absorbs the little non-county borough and says, "You will be quite all right; do not worry. You will still be able to administer your own schools, but you will do it by the method of delegation." It is a very different matter, as many of these small authorities have learnt to their cost.
It is a pity that the Minister of Health has decided to wind up this Boundary Commission. I see no reason why they should not have continued their labours, difficult as they are and difficult as they would be. After all, the sooner the job is begun the sooner it will be finished, and I think the undoubted effect of this Bill is to create in the country a feeling that this is some kind of standstill order which is likely to operate for an extremely long time. It is most uncharacteristic of the right hon. Gentleman. Whatever else may be said for or against him, we on these benches do not associate him with standstill orders. We regard him as a man of action running, generally, in the wrong direction; we are unaccustomed to seeing him standing still. By winding up this Boundary Commission, he has, in effect, done what is well expressed in the words of Omar Khayyam slightly adapted: "come out by the same door where in he went."

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Burden: As the hon. and gallant Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite) has just said, we have had an extremely interesting Debate in which the Minister has had tendered to him certain advice and recommendations from both sides of the House. We have also had from the hon. Member


for Handsworth (Mr. H. Roberts) a look back on history. He referred to the part played by parish councils, but he forgot that perhaps the most eminent Tory statesman of that generation, when told of the Parish Councils Bill, growled, "Parish councils! Give them circuses." That was, of course, the kind of interest taken in local government by Conservative circles in those days. Everyone will agree with the tribute paid by the Parliamentary Secretary to the work of the Boundary Commission so brilliantly led, I think one can say, by its chairman, Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve. With regard to its work, however, there are rightly differences of opinion as to the validity of some of its recommendations.
One thing is obviously quite certain, that all types of local authorities have not agreed with its recommendations. That point has repeatedly been made, although I expect that there are some local authorities that would never agree to any recommendation except one which would enhance their own prestige at the expense of some other authority. I submit that it would be something approaching a scandal if the long and arduous labours of the Local Government Boundary Commission were simply thrown into the waste-paper basket, especially if that were followed by changes in the structure and functions of local authorities formulated on preconceived lines which have not been subjected to rigorous and detailed examination by those experienced in the practical working of local government.
Before the House agrees to the dissolution of the Local Government Boundary Commission, I think it is only right for those of us who believe it to say that, in our judgment, the 1947 Report of the Commission, published in April last year, is the most important and the most realistic official report on the problems of local government that we have had during the present century. It is true that the Commission travelled outside its terms of reference, and that it did not minimise or disguise the weaknesses of local government today. But—and this is the crux of the problem with which we are confronted—the Commission appreciated that it could not, within its terms of reference, carry out the Government's injunction "to make, as far as is practicable, all local government authorities, both individually and

collectively, effective and convenient units."
The Commission faced the facts of the situation. They could play around within very strict limits with the existing pattern of areas—they could only tinker with existing areas—and they realised that to do so would probably be to do more harm than good. Therefore, they brought this House, the local authorities and the Minister right up against the fundamental problems in two short paragraphs. I will quote one of them. It says:
The failure of the local government system to keep pace with the changing patterns of modern industrial England is seen most strongly in the huge concentrations of population living in neighbouring towns, which are closely knit as economic and industrial units, but have little or no connection or cohesion as local government units. Most of these concentrations have grown up without regard to ancient boundaries or to those fixed subsequently.
In addition to this, the Commission has boldly challenged us and the Minister in regard to the relation of central departments to local governing authorities. It deliberately calls attention to the haphazard allocation of functions, and points out that there has been a development of local administrative units connected with the central Government. It says that, as a consequence, the allocation of functions to different types of authorities, has been unsystematic, and that the process has gone on without much reference to local government as a balanced organism.
Everyone actively engaged in local government knows that to be true. They know that as the result of this haphazard allocation of functions—and this Government are not the only Government who have been involved in that haphazard allocation of functions; it has been a feature of Government action ever since 1919—many local authorities are experiencing a very deep sense of frustration in their daily work. I know that despite these difficulties, many are efficiently and loyally trying to carry out their manifold responsibilities. I make no apology for saying that local self-government is the cornerstone of British democracy. Unless the problems of local government areas and functions are comprehensively tackled in the very near future, the result will be, what everyone having the interest of local government at


heart would deplore, namely, an ever-increasing direction of local authorities from the centre by means of circulars, orders, regulations, and so on, and, what perhaps is more important, the bypassing of local government for other types of administration. I agree that we cannot deal with these problems in the few months that remain to the present Parliament.
I would say to the Minister that local government has its roots deep in our national life. Local government preceded central government. If we must dissolve the Local Government Boundary Commission, I beg the Minister to take immediate steps to see that local government—which is one of the contributions which this country has made to an advancing civilisation—is allowed to develop with a genuine sense of responsibility, with a new partnership between central government and local government—a partnership inspired by the spirit of co-operation—and, equally important, with a realisation that all administrative experience is not in Whitehall nor in the central department, but that local authorities, given the opportunity, can make their own distinctive and vital contribution to the public services and the wellbeing of the country.

7.41 p.m.

Mr. Peart: I approve of the Government's decision to dissolve the Local Government Boundary Commission. We have had several arguments today which go to prove that we need some radical reorganisation of our local government structure and I was very glad to hear the Parliamentary Secretary announce that the Government are surveying the whole field. We assume, naturally, that at a later date a report will be published and that that report will be implemented through legislation which, I trust, will be put into operation by a second Labour Government after 1950.
I think we can all agree that some major reform is necessary. I have always thought that this Boundary Commission was only tinkering with the problem and I said so in this House in 1946 when, on the occasion of the Gracious Speech, I pleaded for a major reform of local government and, then, the setting up of a Royal Commission to investigate the functions of local government along with

the structure, in all its aspects. Later, I addressed Questions to my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Health, who then, perhaps rightly, thought that the time was not ripe for a major reform. I also remember a Question to the Prime Minister, and he said he felt that there was no unanimity on this question. Since then, through the experience of national legislation imposing further functions and duties upon local authorities, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot tinker with this problem but that we must have a major reform.
Hon. Members opposite have asked the Minister to state his proposals. I should like hon. Members opposite to state their proposals. I wish the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) had stated the views of the Opposition about local government reform and I hope that the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), when he winds up this evening, will give us some indication of what a Tory administration would do if they were in power. In fact, they did precious little about local government reform when they were in power.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Has the hon. Member never heard of the Act of 1929?

Mr. Peart: The Act of 1929 is not a major comprehensive scheme of reform. I think it was only tinkering with the problem. Even before a Labour Government came into power in 1945, and before 1939, the functions and structure of local government needed to be tackled boldly and courageously. In my own experience of a local authority, there was great need for drastic reform in the 1930s. But I should like to know what a Tory Government would do now and what the Tory Opposition propose. They attacked the Minister for not being definite about his proposals. Obviously, when the Minister is conducting a survey he cannot be dogmatic. He must assess evidence just as a Royal Commission would assess it. He must certainly take into consideration the valuable contribution which the Boundary Commission has already made. He must, too, bear in mind the views of hon. Members on this side of the House. After all, we cannot be dogmatic about this matter, but I should like to hear some contribution on the subject from hon. Members opposite.
There are some people who put forward the view that there should be a measure of regionalisation, with a large authority and a small area authority, both authorities democratically elected. That view, I know, is held by many hon. Members on this side of the House. I hold it myself. Then there is the viewpoint expressed by responsible organisations like the National Association of Local Government Officers. In their interim report, which was published in 1941, and I think confirmed by a subsequent report, they seemed to stress the all-purpose authority. Then we have the interesting views of various individuals. I can think of one in passing—that of a former clerk to the Denbighshire County Council, Mr. William Jones, who advocated that the county council should be an all-purposes authority, with a main authority above, the main authority to consist of an area comprised of six county councils, the members nominated by the county councils.
We have, therefore, numerous viewpoints on this question of local government reform, and I stress once more that I trust the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities will give us some indication of his view instead of trying to gain some small debating point by attacking the Minister of Health, who is quite capable of looking after himself. I hope all hon. Members will agree with the Minister that we must cast aside this Commission, not because we condemn the work which has been done but because we must tackle this problem boldly. I remember the case of the authority, of which I was a member before the war—a rural district council catering for a population of 90,000. Inside that rural district council we had large mining towns which were for administrative purposes only parts of parish councils. There is one example, and it could be multiplied up and down the country.
We had, also, the experience of the Minister of Health himself when he had to sponsor his Bill dealing with the Health Service. He had to create virtually a new authority, and declared that the old local government structure could not possibly administer the new Health Service efficiently. I entirely agree with him. We have also the experience of the new development areas. I happen to represent a development area—West

Cumberland—and in that area we have had to build up a new economy, through the implementation of the Distribution of Industry Act, passed during the war. New industries and new factories need new basic services. In the sphere of industrial planning we had to face the problem of how could numerous local authorities provide efficiently the basic services new industries required.
We have, also, the case which was mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite) and my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). We passed a major Bill—the Representation of the People Bill. The Commission responsible for the alteration of Parliamentary boundaries had to take into consideration local government boundaries. New Parliamentary constituencies were created. I believe, now, that some of those local government boundaries are completely out of date. As a result, some of the new Parliamentary constituencies which we have set up under the Representation of the People Act are out of date, too. So we can have numerous instances to prove that we must somehow settle this fundamental question of structure and functions, and the only way we can do it is to have a major survey, and in the end, I hope, comprehensive legislation dealing with the radical re-organisation of local government.
Whatever system may be adopted all hon. Members in all parts of the House will agree that, whatever bodies emerge out of the survey which has been suggested, they must be democratically elected. They must have power to meet the needs of particular localities—Geography, civic consciousness, history, will have to be taken into consideration. If we improve local government it will mean that we are improving the processes of democracy. We must remove old traditions, sometimes, if those old traditions create archaic structures that impede proficient administration. In the interests of efficiency, and in the desire to improve the processes of democracy we must necessarily have a major survey. I am certain that this is not a party matter, but that hon. Members on all sides of the House will agree with the Minister that we must dissolve this Boundary Commission, and have a comprehensive


survey, and that, in the end, the Government of the day must assume the responsibility for introducing legislation.

7.52 p.m.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: I am very much in agreement with much of what the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) and the hon. Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Mr. Burden) have said. I particularly agree with the hope that for ever local government will be democratically elected. I, as a Conservative, entirely agree with the hon. Gentlemen in this respect, that I believe in doing away with that which is out of date in any system and in retaining the good. But, in order to arrive at a decision in that matter, it is necessary that there should be some sort of body—a Royal Commission, if necessary—to deal with the problem, and to go into it in all its details. I should like to associate myself also with what has been said about the work of the Boundary Commission and of its very able chairman. They have worked very hard; and in my view their 1947 report, as has already been said, was a most excellent document. Let us hope and pray that what is in that report will not be wasted.
Many of the local authorities, particularly the smaller ones, are profoundly disturbed by the winding-up of the Commission. One of the chief reasons, so far as I can see, is that they have no assurance that anything is to be put in its place. We have heard from the Minister that the whole matter is under review. Well, I hope that the Minister tonight will give us a much clearer indication than he has given so far of what that means, and of who is carrying out the review, and whether any conclusion has been arrived at so far. Admittedly, he made the statement only in June this year, and there has not been a great deal of time, but I ask what is proposed to be done between now and the General Election? I am certain from what we know of the Minister that he is not going to stand still, but it will alleviate the anxiety of a large number of people if, when he winds up the Debate, he will give us a clear statement of what it is the Government are going to do in the ensuing months.
We on this side of the House have been accused of not producing a policy. We are asking the Government, as the Government of this country, to say what they are going to do because they are in a position to do it. We as yet are not in that position. When we are we shall tell the people of this country what it is we intend to do.
There is one thing which is quite clear as a result of the winding-up of this Commission, and it is that the main reform of local government has now been indefinitely postponed. It has been agreed on both sides of the House that the time is ripe for the whole structure to be reviewed. Now that, in my view, has been put back a very long time by the introduction of this Bill, and it is for that reason, if for no other reason, that I shall oppose the Bill tonight. It is no excuse or pretext to say that the matter can be dealt with by Private Bill. That is too cumbersome and expensive a process.
We should like to know whether the Government really believe as a whole in regionalisation. The Prime Minister wrote in his "Problems of Socialist Government" in 1933 that, in his view, it was the Socialist policy that there should be Regional Commissioners—and, incidentally, good Socialists at that. Is that what this Labour Government of today still believe? Is that the direction in which we are going? Heaven help this country if it is. The local government which has been built up is the backbone of the central Government of this country, in the same way as the N.C.O.s are the backbone of the British Army, and it will be a very tragic day for England if, as has continually been the trend since this Government came to office, the powers of the small local authorities are gradually whittled away or centralised in a county authority, or even in an authority centred in London.
I am a believer—and an unrepentant believer—in the parish council and the borough council and the rural council. I believe that the man on the spot knows what his neighbour wants far better than any authority sitting in an office in Whitehall or even in a county town, and I think we should demand tonight a very clear statement from the Government of the direction in which they intend to go, and of the methods they intend to adopt in this matter of local government.
From both sides of the House we have had pleas for the non-county boroughs that are desirous of acquiring county borough status. I wish to add my voice to those pleas. The Minister received a deputation on this subject. There is no need in the least for me or any other hon. Member to go into the details of their claim, because the right hon. Gentleman is fully aware of them. I understand he received the deputation with sympathy. I was, unfortunately, in Germany at the time, or I should have been with it.
I hope the Minister makes a pronouncement that the population figure of 100,000 will not be left in the Bill, because if it is, it will become a statutory figure, and, whether he is in power or whether he is not, it will be almost beyond anybody's ability to do very much about it. It must be, in our view, a fluid figure. I think in a way it was a pity that any figure was quoted at all, because I do not believe that this is just a matter of population. There are many other considerations. It may be that there is a borough with more than 100,000 people that is not fitted to become a county borough, and it may be that there is one with fewer than 50,000 which is fitted to become a county borough. My own borough is very much on the borderline, if this population figure is to be the measure. It has got to the 70,000 mark. It is a very progressive and excellent borough, indeed.
Finally, I should like to agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite), who pointed out the defects of delegated legislation, and of direction from the county. It is not working happily in the case of the Education Act, as probably the Minister knows only too well. I could tell him—not now, for it would take too long a time—of the difficulties which are occurring between boroughs and the county authorities. They are on an amicable basis, but there are a great number of difficulties which should not exist. For the reasons which I have given, I wholeheartedly support the Amendment tabled by this side of the House.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Kinley: I begin by expressing my regret at the introduction of this Bill. As one who has been for a

long time deeply and actively interested in local government, and who has a knowledge of the difficulties which confront not all but many of the local authorities today, I regret its introduction. Similar difficulties confronted them 50 years ago under the old order to which we shall be reverting on the pasisng of this Bill. When this Bill becomes an Act, local authorities will go back to that old order which was extremely unsatisfactory.
Naturally, I am not pleased at that prospect. I would have preferred the Local Government Boundary Commission to have remained in existence and to have continued to examine every local authority in the country from time to time to discover on the spot and on the basis of actual experience what was required, not from the point of view of local ambition but in the national interest and from the point of view of the Ministry of Health, which is responsible for providing for all those pockets of citizens scattered throughout the country the conditions necessary to give them a healthy and decent life in healthy and decent surroundings. I would have preferred it if the Boundary Commission, with their experienced officers, had continued their work, and if there could have been an amending Bill which would empower the Minister to accept the reports presented by the Boundary Commission and, by order, implement them, unless he was convinced that contrary action was desirable in the national interest.
I have no knowledge of local government work outside my own county of Lancashire. My town has been mentioned this afternoon by a member of the Opposition. I am not, however, speaking tonight for Bootle. I understand that this year there is a possibility that the people of Bootle will get a few more acres on which houses can be built. That is being done by agreement. I want to speak of those authorities placed similarly to Bootle in the county of Lancashire.
I want the Minister to understand in putting forward this Bill tonight that many hundreds of thousands of decent citizens in Lancashire will be thrown back to the position which they occupied before the Boundary Commission was brought into existence, in which a local authority in need of additional land in order to provide decent housing accommodation for its


citizens, was compelled to engage expensive legal advisers to bring forward a Bill either in a Committee upstairs or in a Committee in another place, which led to expensive contests of legal wit rather than to a consideration of the needs of the citizens. In those circumstances the decision is arrived at, not by people like the boundary officers who examine conditions on the spot, but by a Committee in a room upstairs whose decision is frequently entirely wrong and unjust.
I want the Minister to understand that there is an urgent need in many of our industrial towns for more space. Their boundaries need to be extended because they have not at the present time, and they cannot secure under the old order to which they are now reverting, the space that is required if they are to provide for their citizens open spaces, playing fields, houses and schools. From my knowledge of Lancashire, I know that there are many towns in which large sections of the population are today living in conditions that are a disgrace to the country of which they are so proud. They are managed by experienced councillors and aldermen who are cribbed, cabined and confined because there is not the space within their own boundaries to provide the decent housing conditions to which their citizens are entitled and which so far, they have failed to secure.
The time has come when the Minister of Health must decide that it is his responsibility on behalf of the Government to see that provision is made for the decent housing of all those people who have not been able to secure decent housing conditions because a town's boundaries have been too small, and because the county have up to now regarded their town cousins as if they were foreigners who had to be resisted. The failure of a Bill promoted by a small county borough costs a great amount of money and many hundreds of broken hearts, and condemns those people to remain overcrowded.
That is why I would have preferred the Boundary Commission and their officers to continue to survey the whole of the country periodically and make their technical recommendations, and to have a Minister here with the power and the will to make an order wherever it was shown by the Boundary

Commission that a town needed 100, 150 or 200 acres in order to provide decent housing accommodation for its citizens and that space was being denied by the county. That land should be included in the boundary of the county borough, not because the county borough ought to have a larger boundary but because the citizen is entitled to a decent house in which to live and bring up his family. We should accept responsibility for seeing that those citizens are not prevented from securing decent housing conditions because of any boundary, whether it be the county boundary, the county borough boundary, or any other boundary.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. Chetwynd: I am afraid I cannot accept the validity of my hon. Friend's argument on the housing position, because as far as I am aware there is nothing to prevent any authority from building outside its boundary. As the Parliamentary Secretary pointed out, if they need easement for that purpose they will receive every encouragement from the Government when they seek it constitutionally.
At the beginning of the Debate I was in some doubt as to the wisdom of the step the Government had taken, but after listening to every speech, of which there have been about 15, I think there are 15 very good reasons why the Government are right in taking this action Every hon. Member who has spoken has revealed a fundamental divergence of view on the work of this Commission Every spokesman from county councils, county boroughs, non-county boroughs, urban districts, rural districts, and even parish councils, revealed that where there was a specific instance either of boundary improvement, or the taking in of territory, or the establishment of a new county, he would disagree and fight tooth and nail to prevent it from going through. I consider that one very good reason why my right hon. Friend should proceed in this matter.
I want to raise one or two points on the effect this Bill will have in my constituency and the surrounding area, not because that is important in itself—although it is to us—but because from that I can draw a certain general principle and, I hope, implant certain ideas in the Minister's mind when the comprehensive review of local government


takes place. The first point concerns the establishment of new counties. It is obvious from the Debate that there are great disparities between the existing counties. They have been in existence for many years, for no economic or social reasons, but purely traditionally and historically. When there is this review, I want the Minister to bear in mind the wise proposal of the 1947 report concerning the Tees-side area as a whole. Living there at the moment is a population of 300,000 governed by the councils of two counties, one county borough and seven county districts: it is a homogeneous whole; its economic problems are the same; the river does not divide it, but rather knits it together. For the purpose of government half of my constituency looks to Durham, over 20 miles away, and the other half looks to Northallerton, nearly 30 miles away, which is a preposterous position to be in today.
I hope my right hon. Friend will bear in mind the statement of the Commission that the present arrangement is unsound for an area which has many common problems, and that when this review takes place he will be thinking boldly in terms of the creation of a county of North Yorkshire. But we could not possibly proceed with that suggestion now, although the Boundary Commission recommends it, because each one of the counties, county districts, and county boroughs would be fighting tooth and nail to prevent it from taking place. We therefore need a breathing space of two or three years to educate authorities on this problem, so that the idea can sink in, and then when my right hon. Friend brings forward his comprehensive report the ground will be fertile and it will go through with the minimum disturbance.
The problem of the non-county borough has already been stressed. Indeed, we have had a very good lobby for it in the House today, and I hope the efforts that hon. Members have made have impressed my right hon. Friend. Tremendous difficulties will arise out of the insertion of the figure of 100,000 in the Schedule, because it means that it will be a barrier to the future advancement of these nine non-county boroughs without a major addition of territory, which is frankly impossible at present.
If the figure were 75,000, then in almost every case by local agreement these nine non-county boroughs would reach that figure and could go ahead with their plans for attaining county borough status.
There is serious perturbation at the loss of functions by non-county boroughs which has been going on in the past four years, both to nationalised industries and through the different Acts passed, to a more remote authority. Our complaint is not about the Acts, but that the non-county boroughs as such have been excluded from a full share in the organisation. In my view, there is no earthly reason why a non-county borough such as Stockton should be in a worse position than many county boroughs less important either in numbers or in economic contribution to the nation. The views of the Boundary Commission on this are clearly that each one of these nine non-county boroughs is as capable as the other county boroughs of carrying on most of the functions they recommend. Nevertheless, I say that it is most difficult to proceed by agreement at the present time without a very great disturbance in local government areas.
I hope my right hon. Friend will also bear in mind that the unsettled relationships between the county councils and the non-county boroughs—and we could all give evidence of it—is very bad for the health of local government; every question of delegation under exsting Acts, in which powers have been transferred to the county councils, now becomes an issue of real importance in these towns, and most towns feel that they have had a raw deal.
I hope my right hon. Friend will announce as soon as he can his intentions regarding both the structure and the functions of local government, so that we know where we stand. The hon. and gallant Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite) expressed some surprise that my right hon. Friend was standing still in this matter. The point he omitted was that my right hon. Friend is only standing still in order to jump further later on. He has got the background of this report, which will give him a firm jumping-off ground, and will enable him to get a much better result in the future than if he went ahead now and were faced with all the disagreements and disturbance I have mentioned.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: In view of the long discussion we have already had I propose to detain the House for only a few moments before the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) winds up for the Opposition. I should like to begin by congratulating the Minister on having had both the courage and the wisdom to introduce this Bill. I think that he has taken the only step that could have been taken having regard to the three reports of the Boundary Commission, and in having decided, once and for all, to sweep it away no one is belittling the very valuable reports that have been produced. What does surprise me is the Amendment which has been put down by the Opposition, in suport of which we have heard very little this evening. I regard the Opposition's Amendment as a typical obstructionist Amendment, pettifogging and disingenuous in spirit. What does the Amendment suggest? It suggests that the Boundary Commission, which is now being abolished, should be kept in being because it would permit of the
… making of minor and urgent adjustments by a simple and inexpensive machinery originally set up by Parliament for the purpose.
There is nothing very simple or inexpensive about the machinery under the Boundary Commission. Apart from that and I am not complaining, to date the Commission itself has cost the country £140,000. Perhaps Members had not noticed that one incidental result of the Bill is to save £59,000 per annum—a moderate amount but, nevertheless, a contribution towards the economies we are always being urged to make. It is not right for the Opposition to suggest that the object of the Commission was to enable minor and urgent adjustments to be made. The White Paper of 1945 said:
It may be said that to entrust powers of so wide and important a character to a body of Commissioners not directly responsible for Parliament is a drastic proposal.
When the Bill which embodied the Local Government Boundary Commission was introduced what did the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) say about it? He knew it was not to be a simple Measure, intending to permit of minor adjustments; he knew it was intended to

have far-reaching effects. Although welcoming the Bill he said:
This Bill is to deal with a very large problem, and it leaves a doubt in the minds of some of us whether the machinery suggested is really sufficient to deal with a problem of this size."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1945; Vol. 410, c. 1968.]
It is obvious that the well-founded doubts of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman were justified. The machinery which was then set up by Parliament has proved inadequate to deal with the problem. How, therefore, can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman complain that the Commission ought to be retained when he himself doubted whether it would be adequate to fulfil its functions and when, in each report, the Commissioners themselves have pointed out that their powers are insufficient, that they cannot deal with boundaries without dealing with the powers of local authorities, and they want further legislative Measures to be passed by this House? I have never seen an Amendment with less justification proposed to this House from the Opposition benches.
It has been said that certain criticisms have been made from these benches. Quite right; it has always been the case in this Parliament that Members on these benches have had to do the duty of the Opposition of providing honest constructive criticism of the Government, a duty which, over and over again, as the country well knows, has been neglected by the official Opposition. That is as true in matters of local government as it is in national matters. If Members opposite had any real concern for the future welfare of local government a number of constructive suggestions could have been made. I wish to mention only one, and for the reason that it has not yet been mentioned. One of the Commission's reports refers, accurately, to the fact that in local government today there is a sense of frustration. It is quite true that the central Government is over loaded and that local government is frustrated.
I welcome the Bill because it wipes the slate clean; it enables the Government to bring forward fresh proposals for dealing with local government. But this sense of frustration, to which the Commission has referred, is not merely a sense of frustration that arises over the boundaries of a particular municipality


or county council, or because of their powers. It arises equally, and, I think, much more, because of the unsatisfactory arrangements in the present relationship between the central Government and the local authorities. That relationship is necessarily in a state of flux, because of the large measures of reform in the social services which the Government have been introducing. Therefore, when the time comes to see what the pattern of our future society will be, in the light of the social services that are being administered, one of the essential things for the Government to consider in relation to powers and functions of local authorities is the relationship between the central Departments of the Government at Westminster and local authorities of all types.
This is the cause of much of the existing frustration. Today, local authorities are spending £540 million a year, of which the central Government provide 40 per cent., or £234 million, so that there is inevitably—because there must be some control—a great deal of wasteful and unnecessary duplication of effort on the part of administrative staff between the central Government and local governments. This is a matter which will, no doubt, be the concern of the Minister of Health when having regard to the future pattern of local government. I will not go into details now, because most of us know the tedious steps which have to be taken by every municipality today in obtaining permission for this, a loan sanction for that, and approval of plans for a site and then for buildings, with highly paid technical officers of local authorities very often having to submit their plans and proposals to a relatively less senior staff in the central Departments.
We know that a Treasury Committee has been sitting to work out the whole question of the best and most economic use of local government manpower. Undoubtedly, considerable economies could be made in this field. I noticed from an answer given recently by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to one of my right hon. Friends that that committee is about to produce an interim report. I very much hope that the Minister will tell us tonight that that report will be published, so that it can be publicly discussed and the whole question of relationship between the central Government and local government

authorities examined in connection with the future pattern of local government. I agree with what other hon. Members have said, and I hope it will not be unduly long before the promised review takes place. It would, however, be a mistake to undertake this review prematurely. After all, local government is not an end in itself; it simply exists to serve the community. For these reasons I am very glad that the Minister has, in abolishing the Boundary Commission, cleared the decks for a complete overhaul of our local government arrangements.

8.29 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I am sure that the House has given long and careful consideration to this Measure, and to a considerable extent from a non-party and a well-informed point of view, from both of which categories I exclude the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher). It is interesting to note that the Government have had a rather poor day. Their supporters have been amongst the foremost of those who have regretted the decision which has been taken. The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Kinley) both frankly regretted the decision to do away with the Commission, and both frankly advocated its retention, a point of view I commend to the hon. Member for East Islington as worthy of his explanation on some future occasion.
The hon. Member for East Islington carefully skated around that fact, being too anxious to get on to his particular remedy, which was that the Minister should publish the report of a Treasury Committee on staffing; he trusted very much that the Minister would publish it and consider the problem of local government, but not prematurely. The hon. Member was very anxious that nothing premature should be done, but I think he can take it that nothing will be done this side of the General Election. Other hon. Members pointed out the difficulty in which this was going to place them; they were not so anxious as the hon. Member for East Islington that delay should take place.
A most strong and vigorous description of the awkward position in which this was going to leave local government came from many Members in all parts of the House. It is true that some hon. Members


thought it would give a breathing space during which local authorities could become reconciled to each other, and this naive optimism was very obvious in the speech of the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd), who said that if they were given a little breathing space they would become so reconciled. I have been in local government a good many years, and I can say that Tees-side has been breathing about this for a good long time, and the longer it breathes the fiercer it gets. I do not think Tees-side is likely to come to any sort of love feast as a result of the abolition of the Commission. The real difficulty is that this does not leave us with a clean slate at all. It leaves us with the position for which the Government of the day thought some remedial action of some kind or another was necessary, a view shared by Members in all parts of the House.
For my part, when the Commission was announced and when the Bill was under consideration, I did my best to warn the House that this was a very thorny problem and would take a good deal of consideration. But that does not mean that the objects for which the Parliamentary Secretary commended the Bill to the House at the time might not be carried through. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning said that the Bill
merely sets up machinery for the purpose of dealing rapidly, efficiently and as inexpensively as possible with boundaries that ought to be adjusted, and sometimes urgently."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1945; Vol. 410, c. 1981.]
Members in all parts of the House have said that the Commission can, in fact, carry out these adjustments, the boundary adjustments which will have to be tackled by some machinery or another, and with a cumbersome and expensive machinery as a result of the decision of the Minister.

Mr. Bevan: indicated dissent—

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I do not think the Minister can wave it aside as lightly as that. The hon. Member for East Islington came forward with a happy suggestion that it was really an economy measure, that as a result of this a certain sum of money was to be saved. He first said the Commission had cost £140,000, but I do not suppose that even he would

suggest the whole of that money has been wasted, because that was not the view of other Members, or that its continuing activity, which he put at £59,000, would be wasted. Two or three contested pieces of private legislation in Parliament would eat up all that money and more.

Mr. Bevan: And a contested order by the Commission.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: That may be, but I think the Minister exaggerates. It may be, but let us take one or two cases in point. The case of Bootle and Oldham were mentioned earlier. There was an Oldham Extension Bill 18 years ago, and it was opposed by the urban district of Chadderton. The expenses of the urban district came to £10,000, and a conservative estimate of the whole thing was that it cost between £25,000 and £30,000. Does the Minister suggest that the procedure before the Boundary Commission is going to cost as much as that?

Mr. Bevan: I do not want to go into this in the course of my statement, but what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has forgotten all the time is that under the procedure laid down in the 1945 Act, an order proposed by the Boundary Commission, which was opposed in the House, would go through a most expensive, lengthy and frustrating machinery.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: It is not so lengthy, and I do not think it is so frustrating and expensive as the procedure to which the Minister is condemning local authorities in this Bill.

Mr. Bevan: No.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Oh, yes. The Minister is going back to the previous procedure, and he cannot ride off on that. He must produce facts and figures to prove it. He will agree with me that the procedure he proposes is an extremely expensive procedure.

Mr. Bevan: I am not proposing any procedure.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The Minister is. His Bill says so in terms. It reverts to a certain procedure. That is the procedure which the Minister proposes, and he cannot get away from it. When the Minister brings forward a proposal here to be sanctioned by King,


Lords and Commons, I would say it was a proposal by the Minister, and this is the proposal under which he is asking the local authorities to operate. That is the first reason why there is general regret in the House that this step, admittedly a step backward, has had to be taken.
One hon. Member suggested that the Minister was standing still in order to leap forward, a new athletic conception which is not usual, for a position of complete immobility is a most disadvantageous position for a vigorous impulse forward. The Minister is in a difficult position and cannot be blamed. He has had a report which he can neither accept nor refuse, and he has taken the somewhat drastic method of cutting off the head of the councillor who gave him this counsel. He cannot feel aggrieved if it has caused a certain amount of alarm and despondency amongst other people who are giving him counsel, and amongst those about whom this counsel was given.
I hope the Minister will deal with the point about the staff. It was raised by one or two hon. Members. I trust that the Minister will be able to give an assurance that the skilled technical staffs, who were invited into the new organisation on the understanding that it was a permanent part of our Civil Service machinery will not simply be thrown overboard and told to make their way home as best they can by swimming. I am sure the Minister will be able to give the necessary assurance, because if he is unable to do so, he will hear about it on further stages of the Bill as it passes through the House.
The real uneasiness, however, was because the House is not happy about the position in which local government is left as a result of this decision. An attempt, admittedly a bold attempt, to deal with it by an outside authority has failed. The outside authority brought forward some far-reaching suggestions, and many hon. Members have said that it was good that those far-reaching suggestions should be brought forward by an outside authority. It will be intensely difficult for the local authorities themselves to come to conclusions regarding these matters.
Two great groups of local authorities are supporting our Amendment. The hon. Member for East Islington probably has not heard of either the Association of Municipal Corporations or the County Councils Association, but they are im-

portant bodies. They are supporting our views. It is only fair to say that the urban districts and the parish councils do not; but that is proof of how difficult the problem is. It is certainly not proof of either the inadvisability or the impossibility of the course which we suggest, that the Commission should be retained while the review by the Government is carried out. At the end of the day it will certainly come to a review by the Government.
The Parliamentary Secretary gave the assurance that such a review was in progress. He confirmed the earlier statement of the Minister that a sort of running review was going on. The Minister could not say when it would fructify. The Parliamentary Secretary was a little more categorical and said that very few of those changes would go through before the Government came to announce its proposals, that is to say the emergency changes which the Minister himself said were urgently necessary. That must mean that the process is in a fairly advanced state and that the announcement of the decision must be made fairly soon. Are we wrong? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary has gone beyond the permission of the Minister, and the process of fructification is still proceeding in that secret ingemination which always precedes a Government's programme shortly before a very critical General Election.
We would ask the Minister a question. Can he say when the results of this review may be expected? Maybe they can be expected this year or next year. May they be expected before or after the dissolution of Parliament? I do not suppose that the Minister would wish to hide himself behind the possibility of a change of Government. No doubt, if a change of Government came about, the Minister of Health would then feel himself relieved of those many bonds which he places upon himself just now, and would find it possible to give advice from this side of the House much more freely than he is sometimes able to do it from that side.
The difficulty in which the Minister is placed is patent to us all. He is supported in one respect by all of us on this side of the House and only by a minority by that side. The Minister of Health says that Parliament should be dissolved and that there should be a General Elec-


tion. So do we all, on this side. Only a minority on that side say so. The Minister is in a minority on that side of the House. If he would join with us I think that we could get that General Election quite soon. Then we could have a refreshed Parliament able to deal and grapple with the subject. Obviously, over all these discussions there has come the aura of approaching dissolution. This Parliament is devoid of the power, vigour and authority necessary to bring forward great constructive proposals such as are necessary to deal with a problem—[Interruption.] Well, if it is not devoid of those qualities, why does it not bring them forward? If it is possible for it to bring forward such proposals, let it do so. I am excusing hon. Members opposite for their supineness and apathy, but if they wish to take it upon themselves, well, if the cap fits, let them wear it.
The review of local government is an extraordinarily difficult task and requires the full weight of authority of a government in the flush of its power. The reform of local government has always been almost the prerogative of Conservative Governments. The great original Act setting up the county councils was the Act of the Salisbury Government, and the next great review, the review of 1929, was the Act of Mr. Chamberlain. These reviews, believe me, are done with great difficulty. It is quite true that all the opposition which has been suggested tonight comes actively to the forefront when actual concrete proposals are tabled. It is not difficult to enunciate general principles; the real difficulty comes in their application.
The Minister knows well how difficult it is to bring about such reorganisations. He has carried out the reorganisation of the Health Service, and some of his colleagues have carried out the reorganisation of such services as gas and electricity. They do not square with the simple statement of one hon. Member opposite that all the new reforms should be carried out by democratically elected local authorities. These are new types of local authorities which are not democratically elected but come into being as the result of an election carried out under the Minister's hat. For all that they are very important and difficult reorganisations to carry through. I have

carried through many of them at one time or another.
I have this to say to the Minister. When he says that function and boundary are so closely bound up together, he must not believe that that is mathematically true and true in every case. There are ancient units of government in this country which simply cannot be swept away. There are certain functions which transcend the boundaries of local authorities but that does not mean that for that reason we must abolish local authorities. I had to do with the reorganisation of areas under the Milk Marketing Scheme and some of the health services, the reorganisation of London medical areas for the blitz and the reorganisation of Britain into evacuation areas, all areas of different sizes and some of them truly gigantic. The evacuation area of London far transcended all the boundaries of the greatest London that even the most vehement reformers could possibly bring forward. But at the end of the day there is still such a thing as London, there is still such a place as Norfolk and there are still such places as the county boroughs which have made their voices heard time and again throughout our discussions.
I do not think there is an ideal solution for this, and that is why the Opposition feel that the continuous adjustment which it would have been possible to make by means of the wise use of the Commission would have avoided the freeze and then the explosion which is what we fear will take place if, as the Minister suggests, all movements are held up and everything awaits some enormous and far-swept review, reform and reorganisation of local authorities put together. The Minister has said that he has chosen the end of this Debate solely for the purpose of allaying anxiety. He has a great opportunity before him. The anxiety has spread far. I gave him earlier on the case of the Hereford authority, upon which he seemed to cast some doubt—

Mr. Bevan: No, Sir. No doubt at all. Complete certainty.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman seemed to cast some doubt upon the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) and he seemed to cast some doubt on the originator of those remarks. That is a little harsh, because the gentleman who made those remarks is not


merely the mayor of an important local authority but the Socialist mayor of that authority. He is a political supporter of the right hon. Gentleman. It is a little harsh of the right hon. Gentleman to cast upon one of his own supporters those furious vilifications which, on lungeing from his seat, he hurled across the Floor of the House with such vehemence only an hour or two ago.
The right hon. Gentleman succeeded somehow or other in arousing in the breast of the Socialist mayor of Hereford the statement that the deputation which had attended on the Minister had obtained information which was alarming to those who believed in the democratic principle in local government. A deputation had waited on the Minister of Health the day before the representatives met, and the Minister had said that it was his intention that all the small authorities should go out of existence, and that government of localities with a population of fewer than 100,000 would in future be vested in regional councils.

Mr. Bevan: What was the date of that?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The date was 7th October, 1949. I will give the report to the Minister if he wishes; he might like to see it, and I am sure it will be of the greatest interest to him. That is part of the alarm which the Minister will have an opportunity of allaying, and I am sure he will grasp it with both hands because, in this new and unaccustomed rôle, he ought to lose no opportunity of rehearsing as often as he can.
The real difficulty in which we are placed still remains that of the reform of local government. We have been attacking the question piecemeal. The hon. Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) made that abundantly clear, and it has been made clear by other hon. Members throughout this Debate. Perhaps it was inevitable under the circumstances, but it has left in the minds of local authorities the fear that somehow or other powers and duties are being whittled away, in some cases almost without due consideration, accidentally, and by their own friends. An hon. Member opposite said, "Ours was the party of local government, it grew up in it; who can suppose that we should attack local government?" That is what alarms the representatives of the local authorities so

much. Time after time they see great services removed from their purview, great areas in which they learn the secrets of modern administration taken away, and they do not regard the opportunity to run a concert or a cinema as entirely making up for the loss of those great services.
The electricity departments or the gas departments of great local authorities have been the administrative workshops where people have learned their skill, and the deprivation of them has certainly given rise in the minds of local authorities to a profound uneasiness. This is not felt simply by one section or another in the country. Some of them fear an extended regionalism. That fear may not be justified, but there are proposals still going forward which make the local authorities fear that this is the end which will be attained, though it may not be the desire of those who are travelling along that road.
Hon. Members have asked us what are our views upon local government, Our views are very much those of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Symonds), that it should be local and that it should be government. For instance, we do not believe that the removal of the water undertakings from local authorities would be an advantage. The Minister has made some general statements about the nationalisation of water, as he calls it. What does he mean by that? Does he mean a further removal of such undertakings from the great local authorities?

Mr. Bevan: Or from the water companies.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Or from the water companies? Yet there are many local authorities, such as the great local authority of Glasgow, which does not suffer from anything like a water company; neither did it suffer from anything like a gas company. However, that did not stop the Government—which is not concerned with democracy or even with popular election but merely, as the Minister said on a famous occasion, with power—taking these things away from the democratically-elected local authorities and putting them under nominated boards.
The uneasiness of the local authorities is certainly a thing which the Minister will have to dispel. In former views on


geology there were two schools, the evolutionary and the cataclysmic—those who believed that changes had come about gradually, and those who believed that things had been brought about by a series of volcanic explosions. The Minister, if I may say so, belongs to the cataclysmic school. He is all for bringing things about by a series of violent explosions. In fact, he said as much to the representatives of one of the many American deputations who visited him. He explained that he had brought the Health Service into existence all at one time because, of course, that greatly reduced the opposition which could be put up against it.
That is the argument of the volcano when it blows up, and the Minister might, in the terms of a modern popular novel, take as his badge "Flames Coming Out at the Top," that being the way in which people most readily recognise it. Local government was not brought about by people with flames coming out at the top. They fear very much the impact of a fiery reformer such as is suggested, and that fear will continue until the Minister is able to table his proposals.
We are asked what we would do. Certainly, we would call the local authorities into consultation. We would do our best to meet those authorities themselves. There are many things which we think should be done now: that municipal transportation, for instance, should be returned to the municipality. These are things which we should need to discuss with the local authorities themselves. I do not think that the Minister so far is noted for long and careful consultation previously with those whom he is about to reform. His reforms have been described by one of the greatest soldiers of our time—Field-Marshal Montgomery—as partaking of the nature of military operations rather than reforms. The local authorities rather fear that this is the smokescreen preliminary to the bursting forth of the armoured squadrons of the Minister which may take place now at almost any time.
Those are the reasons why we say that the retention of a body which was able to continue the slow fitting of the structure of local government to the needs of the citizen would have been an advantage; that it is not necessary to despise

small changes because they are not great; that some of the reforms which have been advocated, even this afternoon by hon. Members, would have been of the greatest advantage to the crowded cities or urban districts concerned, and that the prospect of a hold-up until 1952 is a prospect which some of them greet with the utmost uneasiness. We are more than justified in tabling our Amendment. We certainly shall divide upon it, and I trust that some of those hon. Members from the other side who have expressed their sympathy with the objects of the Amendment will find the courage to prove what they said—that this is not a party matter—by following us into the Lobby.

8.59 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I have had the pleasure of debating with the right hon. and gallant Member for Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) almost since he was elected to the House of Commons after the 1945 Election and I know very well that whenever he uses a speech rich in metaphor and adorned with allusion, it is because he is particularly unhappy and not quite sure about his facts. When he he was accusing me just now of being supine because I did not at once come forward with a whole scheme for the reorganisation of local government, it was a characteristic use of false antithesis.
If I might be blasphemous—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."]—if I might border on being blasphemous, I would say that if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had preceded the Creator he would have continued to argue with the Creator that he had been supine on the ground that he did not bring the whole world into operation on one day.
If I may introduce a purely personal note, I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) for being kind enough to recall the fact that one of my first activities in the House was to move a Resolution, as far back as 1929, calling for the establishment of a Select Committee for the simplification and cheapening of Private Bill procedure by local authorities. As a matter of fact, the Select Committee was appointed. My proposal was not received with any enthusiasm by the Opposition at that time, indeed it was not received with any enthusiasm in some Parliamentary legal


circles. But a Select Committee was established and presided over by Sir Dennis Herbert, then the Chairman of Ways and Means, and we had a very useful report and cut down the expenses by something like 50 per cent. That I think, should establish my personal credentials as being anxious to enable local authorities to obtain powers from this House without having to pass the gauntlet of extortioners in the process.
Furthermore, if we are to speak about the vitality of local government and the achievements of the Government since 1945 in this respect, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will probably recall that in 1948 we passed the Local Government Act, which dealt with the equalisation of rates and enables a very large number of local authorities in Great Britain to discharge their functions which very many years of Conservative administration had denied them. It does not lie in the mouths of right hon. and hon. Members opposite to speak of their concern for local government. Indeed, many of the services which had grown up in our local authorities had been established by long years of struggle against Conservative-inspired ratepayers' associations, property protection associations and all the various alibis under which the Tories masqueraded until Lord Woolton simplified them.
It does not really lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite to speak of their love for local government, because they did their very best to starve it, both by denying central funds and at the same time always fighting on behalf of local rate payers against municipal activities. I make this confession at once that when local Conservatives were absorbed in local government activity many of them became good local government men—very many of them. I will be quite frank and say that I think the late Neville Chamberlain did local government in this country a great disservice by derating. It is too difficult to put the eggs back into the shells now, but it is perfectly obvious to many of us that by those derating proposals he withdrew from local government activity a whole milieu of personalities that had enriched it. So that if hon. Members wish to aggravate me into reminiscences, I can produce a good many shot and shell for them because until I came to the House of Commons and for some

time afterwards I spent most of my life in local government activity in almost all the branches of local government.
I say furthermore that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and his colleagues are labouring under a delusion if they think that the procedure of the Boundary Commission is simple and inexpensive. It is no such thing. In the case of unopposed proposals the old procedure was simple and inexpensive: Parliamentary sanction was obtained for them with very little expenditure indeed. That applies to the Boundary Commission's orders. When those orders are unopposed, when agreement has been established by local inquiry, the procedure is inexpensive and simple, but when objection is taken to the orders of the Boundary Commission the whole paraphernalia of Parliamentary counsel is invoked.
In fact, one of the difficulties facing us about the procedure of the Boundary Commission is that what has been done in the case of opposed orders has been to superimpose Parliamentary procedure upon the Boundary Commission's own procedure. So what has been done has not been to set up "simple and inexpensive machinery" such as is referred to in the Amendment. It is of no such character. This must always be the case whenever an expedient is adopted which appears to by-pass the House of Commons. Immediately we try to do that then hon. Members in all parts of the House will rise and say "How are you to protect the objector?"
In other words, if we have an extra-Parliamentary machine in order to try to simplify matters and the only way of simplifying is to by-pass Parliamentary procedure there will always be the person in the House of Commons who will ask "What appeal has an objector against a decision by this tribunal?" This argument when invoked is always so potent that an appeal is always allowed against the tribunal to Parliament itself. When that happens the very expensive machinery we try to drive out is readmitted by the back door. That is exactly what has happened in the case of the Boundary Commission. Indeed before I came to my decision about the Boundary Commission, I took out sample cases of where the local authority was having a Bill opposed and where the Boundary


Commission was having an order opposed, and the amount of time it would take to get them through was about the same.
I do not wish to overstress my case, and there is still the fact that if a proposal came to this House supported by the Boundary Commission it would be much less likely to meet with obstructive opposition. That is quite right, and that residual advantage was left—I make a present of that—but it was not of sufficient advantage to compensate for this expensive procedure.
I have been asked by some of my hon. Friends about the position of non-county boroughs which aspire to county status. Here I must protest against the interpolation into the Debate of the quotation which was used by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). We had a fairly urbane discussion apart from his intervention.

Air-Commodore Harvey: And the right hon. Gentleman's.

Mr. Bevan: But, with his usual bad manners, he thought it was necessary to introduce into this Debate a more stringent note. I do not object. I am prepared to give several Rolands for his Oliver. He said, and the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) repeated the statement that the Mayor of Hereford had made a statement which was reproduced in a local newspaper. I at once say that I am not prepared, without further investigation, to admit that the mayor did say this, because we all know how some of those local newspapers report local council meetings. So I am not prepared to admit that he did say it. All I can say is that assuming that he did say it, I cannot understand it, because I do not remember meeting a representative of Hereford City on any deputation.
I have met representatives from a number of places, Luton, and other representatives of non-county boroughs. But Hereford was not there, and I am quite sure that those who were present on the deputation that day, including hon. Members of this House, would not now say I said that. I challenge them. But, of course, we know what happens. I have here a report of the "Sunday Express." This is the kind of thing which is being

reproduced day by day by some of our national newspapers and which does the very greatest amount of harm.
The heading is "Bevan 'terrified.'"
Councillors are wondering why Mr. Bevan decided to drop the Commission. Said Mr. Harold Bedale, Town Clerk of Hornsey, yesterday, 'We believe Mr. Bevan intends to take the "local" out of local government. He was, we know, terrified by the local election results. We understand he wants to divide the country into the old Civil Defence regions and have inside these a small number of all purpose authorities.'
All this is in quotation marks. The gentleman who is referred to, Mr. Bedale, who is secretary of a non-county borough's committee, wrote a letter to the editor of the "Sunday Express." In a letter addressed to my private secretary he states:
I have this morning read the Minister's speech at Tredegar and feel sure I shall have his sympathy.
He goes on to say in a copy of a letter addressed to the editor of the "Sunday Express" and dated 31st October:
On Thursday last a representative of your paper was in touch with me to ask whether I could verify a Press report of a statement made by the Mayor of a provincial town"—
Hereford, of course. We see how one newspaper takes up the nonsense another newspaper prints.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Go on.

Mr. Bevan: —that at a meeting of the non-county boroughs recently held in London, a statement had been made that the Minister of Health proposed the abolition of all local authorities of lower than 100,000 population. He also asked what was the purpose of the meeting of which he understood I was the secretary. I informed him I was present at the meeting, but I had no knowledge of the statement referred to, and was sure it had not been made.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: This is very interesting but it has nothing to do—

Major Bruce: Tell that to your Fleet Street pals.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: There was some rather insulting language used by the Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary. I do not ask him to repeat it, but he might in the future keep a closer guard upon his tongue. I was saying that we are interested to find that the Minister reads the "Sunday Express." Nobody on this side of the House referred to the "Sunday Express" at all. Let him get on with it.

Mr. Bevan: Really, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot ride off like that. This is the same deputation and the same conference at which I was alleged to have made the statement referred to, and this person who has written this letter to the "Sunday Express" is the secretary of the local authority side of the deputation. Really, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman must take it: he has asked for it.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Well, give us something then.

Mr. Bevan: The letter continues:
I informed him that I was present at the meeting. … I also told him that the purpose of the meeting was to consider the future of local government in its relation to the proposed abolition of the Boundary Commission and the centralisation by successive Governments of what the non-county boroughs believed to be local functions. Your representative made some observations about recent elections and regionalisation but I told him I knew nothing more and he thanked me for my assistance. These are the facts, but I regret to say that the report contained in yesterday's issue of the 'Sunday Express' conveys quite a different impression and is a complete misrepresentation. The report has caused me great embarrassment and may cause me injury in my profession.
I was really making that quotation in order to try to show to the Opposition that they ought to have the same distrust of newspaper reports that I have got. Therefore, they should not waste the time of the House in basing an argument upon a quotation from an obscure provincial paper.

Mr. Turton: I referred to the statement reported in the "Hereford Times." I never quoted the "Sunday Express" or the Town Clerk of Hornsey. Do I gather from what the Minister is now saying that he did not make any of the remarks quoted in the "Hereford Times"?

Mr. Bevan: It is not even necessary for me to say so. The secretary of the local authorities present has said in this letter that in fact no such statement was made.

Brigadier Thorp: I must say that I would rather believe him than you.

Mr. Wigg: On a point of Order. The hon. and gallant Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Thorp) distinctly imputed that what the right hon. Gentleman was saying was untrue.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): I think I heard the remark. I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, "I would rather believe the secretary than the Minister." That is not out of Order.

Air-Commodore Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman was referring just now to newspaper reports. Perhaps he will explain why the "Daily Herald" today makes no comment on Messrs. Cooper Brothers' examination of the groundnut scheme.

Mr. Bevan: This is the queerest form of reasoning that I have ever heard. In one case, a lie is justified because in another case something is not said. As I understand it, however, it is not correct. I understand that the "Daily Herald" has reported it.
What I have said I have said in that regard because it enables me to make a statement which is a consequence of the deputation which I received. I said that I would consider very carefully their representations and the fears expressed by the representatives of the non-county boroughs on this deputation. What they said was that it was not that they felt that they were prevented from coming to Parliament for a rise in their status, but because, by retaining the 100,000 rather than the old 75,000, I would be giving the impression that I attached some sacrosanctity to the figure of 100,000, and that it would serve as a guide to future administration as to the kind of limit below which populations ought not to be given county borough status They also said that if I could find it possible to recommend the Government to alter the figure, they would give an undertaking that they would not, in fact, promote Bills while the review of local government was under way. In view of what they say and in view of the fear they expressed, I am prepared to consider, in Committee, the substitution of 75,000 for 100,000.
The discussion which we have had this evening upon the future of local government has been extremely interesting. It would be quite wrong for me at this stage to give any idea at all to the House of the nature of the proposals that the Government have in mind. All it would do would be to give rise to general speculation and unrest. It is far better that the proposals of the Government should be made known as a whole, because if we


let the country know only a part of them and give an incomplete picture, at once there will be all kinds of speculation as to what the complete picture will be like.
But I do beg the House to realise that here we are in a field where there are no party divisions at all, and that is why I deplore the Amendment on the Order Paper. All it really does is to try to snatch up a few "unconsidered trifles" of discontent and mobilise them in the service of the Opposition vote, but, if the Opposition think that the local authorities will thank them for this, they are very much mistaken, because there is no common body of opinion in local government circles in this nation as to what local government reorganisation should be like. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman quoted counties and boroughs as being in favour of his Amendment. There is no unanimity amongst these, either; not by any means. There is very great disquiet amongst them, while the rural and urban authorities are in favour of the abolition of the Commission.
It was suggested that I had been responsible for misleading the Commission, which is one of the amiable suggestions made by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton. What actually happened was this. Members of the Commission discovered in their investigations that, every time they considered boundaries, functions came up all over the country, no matter where it was, and they told me that they found that this was embarrassing and that it would be difficult for them to make a report on boundaries alone. After some discussion, I agreed that they could go outside the terms of reference and make a report which would call attention to the necessity of an alteration of functions and boundaries and make some tentative adumbrations on the reform of local government.
I did that because, as I expressed to Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve and Sir John Maude at the time, I hoped that, knowing very well that there was no party feeling about this, I could start discussions going in local government circles throughout the country which might eventually crystallise into a common body of opinion which might form the basis of legislation. It must always be the hope of this House that, whenever we try to reform local government, we should carry

local government opinion with us. After all, we have to live with these people, who are an important part of our constitution, and we must try to get the highest common measure of agreement. It was not, therefore, seeking an alibi; it was in order to try and promote an argument about it, to try to get away from the old county borough versus county council—I do not know what the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton is smirking at. There is nothing to smirk at. I should have thought that it ought to be a part of the function of any Minister of Health to try and get discussions going in local government circles in order to get a common body of opinion. Is there anything wrong about that?
What happened after the 1947 report was issued was that discussions did take place, but no common body of opinion has emerged. Therefore, there are no proposals which can form the basis of the reorganisation of the local government of Great Britain. We then considered what further steps we should take because we were, and are, conscious of the fact—a fact that is not only a postwar fact, but was a pre-war fact—that the local government of Great Britain badly needed reorganisation. Most of its structure is ill-suited to the nature of our society, and some alterations are required.
We thought it might be a wise thing first to establish a Royal Commission, but the difficulty of a Royal Commission is that if we had on it all the elements forming local government they would disagree on the Commission, and all we would have from the Commission would be a series of minority reports representing various currents of local authority opinion. If, on the other hand, we had a Royal Commission which did not contain any of the elements of local government, it would carry no authority in local government circles. Therefore, we came to the conclusion that the correct procedure was for the Government themselves to accept the responsibility of examining the whole position, and of ultimately bringing forward their own proposals. That examination is now in being.
The reason why we are postponing the use of certain powers until the end of 1951 is because we are hoping that our proposals will have matured, and that,


therefore, any attempts on the part of local authorities to change either their functions or the boundaries in the meantime will be assimilated and overtaken by the proposals of the Government. That is the position as it stands at the present time. Where local authorities urgently need to alter their boundaries—that is, where they require to have land in order to build houses—then we have said that, as far as the Government are concerned, we are prepared to support proposals of that kind. But we are not prepared to support proposals which are so far-reaching in their character as to make changes that might obviously have to be assimilated in the changes that the Government themselves will propose.
I wish to say just one more thing before I sit down. Obviously, local government, if it is to be local government, must be local, and I entirely agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Symonds)—that efficiency is not the only test to apply to local government. There are some things to which that test is not entirely applicable. The citizens of any of our great communities require an emotional identification with something which is smaller and more immediate than that of the nation itself. Local government is a part of the emotional, spiritual and aesthetic equipment of modern society, and, therefore, it is something to which we cannot only apply the test of efficiency, because if we apply that test to the ends of life as well as to the means of life, then we have a soulless and stereotyped community.
One does not apply the test of efficiency to laughter, and one does not apply it to any of the appetites. One does not apply the test of efficiency, or one ought not to apply it, to any of the biologically pre-conditioned inheritances. Therefore, it does not seem to me to be a good idea always to apply the slide-rule to all one's activities, and especially to local government. A reform of local government that may be justified on the ground that it can produce the most efficient machine is not necessarily the same kind of reform that will satisfy all the other imponderables we need from local government.
It is in the mind of the Government that, whatever reforms are made, they should preserve the vitality of local government and local government administration. I hope, although perhaps I am an idealist, that when they are produced they will receive universal approbation. Although I am not a person who tries to minimise the acerbities of political controversy, I hope that when we do make these proposals they will be examined objectively, and that we shall not try to make party capital out of them, because if that happens, if reform of local government becomes a football of party controversy, we can say goodbye to any local government in Great Britain.
In the last few years many changes have taken place in the functions of local government. It has been a part of the difficulty of the Commission that, at the moment when it was making its reports, functions were being transferred from local authorities to the central authority and from one local authority to another. The Commission were having to consider the problem at a time when the foundations were continually changing, as it were. That may be the reason why this machinery that was established in 1945 proved to be so inadequate. Parliament at that time had no conception of the spate of legislation that was to be produced by the post-war Parliament. What they were really devising was a machine for pre-war conditions which eventually had to be applied to a post-war set of circumstances.
It has therefore been found necessary to wind up the Commission. I am grateful to the Commission for the work it has done. Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve is an extraordinarily able man, and so is Sir John Maude, the Vice-Chairman. They have done a great deal of valuable work which is very helpful to the Government. We have no need to regret the Commission having been set up, but it is now necessary to have it dissolved in order to make way for major proposals.

Question put "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes. 229; Noes, 89.

Division No. 270.]
AYES
[9.35 p.m.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)


Albu, A. H.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Haire, John E. (Wycombe)
Pearson, A.


Alpass, J. H.
Hale, Leslie
Peart, T. F.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)


Attewell, H. C.
Hannan, W. (Maryhill)
Popplewell, E.


Austin, H. Lewis
Hardy, E. A.
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Awbery, S. S.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Porter, G. (Leeds)


Ayles, W. H.
Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)
Pritt, D. N.


Baird, J.
Herbison, Miss M.
Proctor, W. T.


Balfour, A.
Hobson, C. R.
Pryde, D. J.


Barstow, P. G.
Holman, P.
Ranger, J.


Barton, C.
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)
Rankin, J.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Houghton, Douglas
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Berry, H.
Hoy, J.
Richards, R.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Hubbard, T.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.


Bing, G. H. C.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)


Binns, J.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Blenkinsop, A.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Royle, C.


Blyton, W. R.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Sargood, R.


Boardman, H.
Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)
Scollan, T.


Bowden, H. W.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Segal, Dr. S.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Shackleton, E. A. A.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Jenkins, R. H.
Sharp, Granville


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Simmons, C. J.


Brown, George (Belper)
Keenan, W.
Skinnard, F. W.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.
Smith, C. (Colchester)


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Kinley, J.
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Burden, T. W.
Kirkwood, Rt. Hon. D.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)


Burke, W. A.
Lee, F. (Hulme)
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Carmichael, James
Leslie, J. R.
Sparks, J. A.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Levy, B. W.
Steele, T.


Cobb, F. A.
Logan, D. G.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Cocks, F. S.
Longden, F.
Stubbs, A. E.


Collindridge, F.
Lyne, A. W.
Swingler, S.


Cooper, G.
McAdam, W.
Sylvester, G. O.


Corlett, Dr. J.
McEntee, V. La. T.
Symonds, A. L.


Cove, W. G.
McGhee, H. G.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Crawley, A.
McGovern, J.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Cullen, Mrs.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)


Daines, P.
McKinlay, A. S.
Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Maclean, N. (Govan)
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Davies, Ernest (Enfield)
McLeavy, F.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Tiffany, S.


Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S. W.)
Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Tolley, L.


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Mainwaring, W. H.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Deer, G.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)



Delargy, H. J.
Mann, Mrs. J.
Viant, S. P.


Diamond, J.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


Dobbie, W.
Mathers, Rt. Hon. George
Warbey, W. N.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Medland, H. M.
Watson, W. M.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Mellish, R. J.
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Messer, F.
Weitzman, D.


Edwards, John (Blackburn)
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. N. (Caerphilly)
Mitchison, G. R.
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Edwards, W. J. (Whiteshapel)
Moody, A. S.
West, D. G.


Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)
Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Wheatley, Rt. Hn. John (Edinb'gh, E.)


Evans, John (Ogmore)
Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)
White, H. (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Fairhurst, F.
Moyle, A.
Wilkins, W. A.


Farthing, W. J.
Murray, J. D.
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Fernyhough, E.
Nally, W.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Field, Capt. W. J.
Neal, H. (Claycross)
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Forman, J. C.
Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Noel-Buxton, Lady
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
O'Brien, T.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Gibbins, J.
Oldfield, W. H.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Gibson, C. W.
Oliver, G. H.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Gilzean, A.
Orbach, M.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Yates, V. F.


Gooch, E. G.
Palmer, A. M. F.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Pannell, T. C.



Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Pargiter, G. A.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grey, C. F.
Parker, J.
Mr. Snow and Mr. George Wallace.


Grierson, E.
Parkin, B. T.








NOES


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Glyn, Sir R.
Nicholson, G.


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.


Baldwin, A. E.
Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Orr-Ewing, I. L.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Hare, Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.


Bennett, Sir P.
Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.
Raikes, H. V.


Bower, N.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Roberts, H. (Handsworth)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Cmdr. J. G.
Hogg, Hon. Q.
Ropner, Col. L.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.
Howard, Hon. A.
Sanderson, Sir F.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hurd, A.
Savory, Prof. D. L.


Butcher, H. W.
Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


Carson, E.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Spearman, A. C. M.


Challen, C.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Kerr, Sir J. Graham
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)


Crowder, Capt. John E.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Cuthbert, W. N.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Davidson, Viscountess
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Thorp, Brigadier R. A. F.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Turton, R. H.


Dower, Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)
McFarlane, C. S.
Wakefield, Sir W. W.


Drayson, G. B.
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Walker-Smith, D.


Drewe, C.
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie


Elliot, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Walter
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
White, Sir D. (Fareham)


Erroll, F. J.
Marples, A. E.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Foster, J. G. (Northwich)
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
York, C.


Fox, Sir G.
Mellor, Sir J.



Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)
Molson, A. H. E.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Mr. Studholme and


Gage, C.
Neven-Spence, Sir B.
Colonel Wheatley.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Tomorrow.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY COMMISSION (DISSOLUTION) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).

[King's recommendation signified.]

[Mr. BOWLES in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to dissolve the Local Government Boundary Commission and to make consequential provision as respects certain enactments of the Local Government Act, 1933, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of such moneys under Part I of the Local Government Act, 1948."—[Mr. Bevan.]

9.45 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that I asked whether he could make any statement about the staffs. As he was not able to do so in his winding-up speech, can he say now whether there will be any provision for them in the Financial Resolution.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: I think it would be the intention to make provision for

the staff in the normal Treasury manner. Most of the staff are full-time civil servants and some are temporary. Therefore, there ought to be no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with the first category, and, with regard to the second, there ought to be no difficulty in finding alternative employment.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

CIVIL DEFENCE (DRAFT REGULATIONS)

9.46 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): I beg to move,
That the Draft Civil Defence (Burial) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.
It would probably be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker, if we were to take at the same time the following motions relating to the evacuation and care of the homeless, the hospital service, ambulances, sewerage and water supplies, as they all refer to the Ministry of Health Civil Defence Regulations. With your approval, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I propose to say a few words about them together.

Mr. Carmichael: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is it


the intention of my hon. Friend to include the Motions relating to Scotland which are on the Order Paper?

Mr. Blenkinsop: They will be moved separately.

Mr. S. O. Davies: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I notice that in the Civil Defence General Regulations, of which the regulations we are considering tonight are just particular regulations, the General Regulations apply only to England. Naturally, as a Welsh Member of Parliament I should like to know—although whatever the answer is I shall be equally unmoved—whether the draft regulations are intended to apply to Wales.

Mr. Speaker: I think the Minister must answer that. I am not in a position to give a reply.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I understand that they apply to England and Wales, but the regulations to which my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr (Mr. S. O. Davies) was referring were those presented by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and no doubt that matter could be gone into when further regulations are presented by him. The regulations which I am presenting tonight represent a further stage in the development of the Government's Civil Defence plans. The Civil Defence Act, 1948, provided that regulations could be made by the designated Minister, and the Civil Defence (Designation of the Minister of Health) Order, 1949, of 28th July, listed the functions for which my right hon. Friend would be responsible.
The regulations which I am presenting today cover all but two of the functions specified in that order, and regulations in respect of those will be laid before the House shortly. The main work of the Civil Defence system, as has been said before, will fall on the local authorities, and all the regulations, with the exception of the Hospital Service Regulations, will impose duties on local authorities. The regulations themselves are both short and, I hope, clear, but the House may wish me to explain them in very general terms.
I will first mention the Hospital Service Regulations which are made under Section (6) of the 1948 Act. These regula0-

tions repeal the appropriate provisions of the Defence Act, 1939, so as to remove the difficulty of having two sets of powers running together. Section (1) of the 1948 Act gives all the necessary power to my right hon. Friend to plan any development of hospital and allied services that might be necessary. Any additional nurses and auxiliaries which will be needed will be provided by the Hospital Service Reserve which is being recruited at the same time as the Civil Defence Reserve.
With regard to the other regulations, the principle has been adopted of imposing duties on the authorities that have comparable duties in peace time. The class of authority is specified in each case, with the exception of the regulations for the evacuation and care of the homeless. Here, authorities of the same class—as, for example, district councils—need to be divided into the three categories of evacuation, neutral or reception, and this can best be done by administrative circulars which will be issued later. There has been full discussion with all the local authorities, with Government Departments and others involved, and the proposals have general agreement.
I should make it clear that while these regulations have been drawn in such a way as to give a fairly general picture of the responsibility of the authorities, this does not mean that elaborate or expensive measures are to be taken. All that is intended is that the necessary preliminary planning work should be under taken, the officials nominated who will be responsible, certain premises earmarked, and the necessary staff trained. This will involve additional expenditure. So far as this Department is concerned, it will include the cost of recruiting and training and the equipment of members of the National Hospital Service Reserve, and of grant aid towards the expenses of local authorities in training members of the Civil Defence Corps allotted to the services covered by these regulations.
Every effort will naturally be made to keep this expenditure to a minimum. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said, we must keep a proper balance between our defence needs and the needs of our peacetime economy. If, as we devoutly hope, no call is made upon these services, much of the training done under the regulations will be of peacetime


value, and especially is that true of the training of men and women in first aid, home nursing and ambulance duties.

9.53 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: We propose to offer no objection to these regulations, we shall not divide against any of them, and we think that the procedure which the Minister has adopted of making a general statement at the beginning is the appropriate one. We understood that these regulations were to be brought forward on 15th November and that recruiting would start then. Can the Minister say briefly why they have been brought forward earlier and whether there is any significance in that?

Mr. Blenkinsop: There is no special significance. It is quite true that recruitment is likely to start on 15th November, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has suggested.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I must echo the devout hope of the Minister that these services will not be necessary. They were liquidated in 1945 when many of the stores which we have to re-accumulate were dispersed. Few of us expected that in 1945 we should have to do this. However we must be prepared, and trust that the necessity to use them will not arise.
I was interested in the reference to the hospital services, for it does not seem so long ago since I was putting through the original Act under which these great services were brought together. We hoped then, as we hope now, that they would not be necessary. Still the country as a whole, and London in particular, owes an enormous debt to those who shouldered the load in advance and were ready to meet the terrific assault upon a civilian city, the withstanding of which was one of the great glories of London and, indeed, will remain for a long time one of the greatest glories of our people.

Mr. Speaker: I think I can now give an explanation which may help hon. Members. The regulations marked "England" are those which concern the Home Office. We are dealing now only with those of the Ministry of Health, covering England and Wales, under the Act which was passed last July. The title "England," therefore, does not appear on these orders, but does appear

on the orders to be moved subsequently by the Home Office.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I am obliged, Mr. Speaker, for your explanation. I do not understand, however, why the Home Secretary is not interested in Wales, but I suspect that he will be interested in time in that country.
I rise now for a totally different reason. I ask the Government, with all seriousness and sincerity, whether these or any other regulations which are to be considered tonight will or can be of any earthly use should another war take place in this atomic age. Should that war ever happen, these regulations would be of no use at all to us.
The regulations must be regarded got in the light of war strategy and the kind of armaments which existed immediately before 1939, but in the light of the obvious kind of armaments, power and other things which will be used should we ever be so unfortunate as to find ourselves involved in another war. I say with all respect that when I first looked at the list of regulations on the Order Paper, I felt something very close to an unpleasant shudder when I saw that the first of them should be concerned with burials. In the event of our being plunged into another war, I am afraid that these particular regulations will be of great significance.
I am of opinion that the regulations would be of no earthly use and that they render a disservice by the pretence that they can be of use in the next war. To those who are submitting the regulations, I address this question: How can this country, with its high density of population, survive an atomic war, which inevitably will be a war of mass slaughter and torture of the innocent as well as of the guilty? We are informed today that the primitive atom bomb which was used on Hiroshima is now pathetically outdated and that far more powerful bombs, with more highly advanced means of utilising their power, are now in the hands of most of the powerful nations of the world.

Mr. Speaker: I really must interrupt the hon. Member. These regulations are made under an Act of Parliament. Whether or not they relate to the situation as a whole or to the effects of atom


bombs, I do not think that that comes within the scope of the Debate. That question was settled when we had the Second Reading, and the Civil Defence Act has now been passed. These regulations are made in consequence of the Act, and therefore one cannot discuss the subject of whether in an atomic war they will be effective or not.

Mr. Davies: With all respect, Mr. Speaker, when we debated the Civil Defence Act we had no idea what the nature of the future Civil Defence Regulations would be. I object to these regulations because they are obviously worse than useless. As a Member of Parliament I cannot be a party to their passing through the House on the pretence that they will be of any earthly use should we be involved in the next war. I am objecting to these regulations because of their uselessness and utter senselessness, in the light of experience of this or any other nation, should it be involved in atomic war. This is not the kind of Civil Defence I should expect this Government to place before this House and I think I am entitled to tell the House what kind of Civil Defence would appeal to me.
With all respect, I think I am entitled to make my opinion known in this House that the only defence with which we can provide our people is immediately to clear off British soil all foreign armed forces and to announce to the world that in no circumstances will this country either make use of atomic bombs or allow this country to be used as a base of operations for hostilities towards any other nation. I put that as an alternative to these regulations, and I am absolutely confident that my alternative would be a far better thing for the people of this country than the farcical draft regulations which we are called upon to consider this evening.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Burial) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Evacuation and Care of the Homeless) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Hospital Service) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Ambulance) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Sewerage) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th October, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Water Supplies) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved."—[Mr. Blenkinsop.]

10.2 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Thomas Fraser): I beg to move,
That the Draft Civil Defence (Burial) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th October, be approved.
It would be for the convenience of the House if I were to discuss the seven Scottish draft civil defence regulations together as was done with the Ministry of Health regulations. These draft regulations correspond to five of the regulations which have just been approved by the House. There are, however, two which are different—the Draft Civil Defence (Fire Services) (Scotland) Regulations and the Draft Civil Defence (Public Protection) (Scotland) Regulations, the English counterparts of which have not yet been before the House.
As regards the Fire Service Regulations, hon. Members will recall that in the terms of the Fire Services Act, 1947, Scotland was divided into 11 areas for fire fighting purposes. Glasgow was under the administration of Glasgow Town Council and the other 10 areas, each containing, a number of local government areas, were administered by a joint committee of representatives of the combined authorities. The first section of these regulations provides that Civil Defence responsibilities of fire services will be administered by the same authorities as administer fire services now but not by individual county councils and town councils as Civil Defence authorities. I do not know that I need go further into the regulations, but if questions


are asked of me I will do my best to answer them.
It will be seen that the Public Protection Regulations set out in the Schedule the Civil Defence functions to be undertaken by the classes of local authorities there set out. In assigning these functions, the general principle has been followed that local authorities shall have the duties which correspond with their normal peacetime functions. Provision is also made in Regulation 2 that where personnel are transferred permanently from the Civil Defence Corps to the authorities specified in the Schedule the responsibility for the training of such personnel and the financial responsibility for them passes to those authorities. Hon. Members know that the setting up of these divisions of Civil Defence Corps is provided for in the Civil Defence Corps (Scotland) Regulations approved last July. They will be organised by counties and joint counties and large burghs.
The regulation dealing with transfers is needed mainly for the manning of the warden's service by the transfer of members of the corps from the town and county councils which have recruited them to the police authorities which are responsible for the warden's service. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health has just said, these Regulations do not deal with all the functions to be assigned in the organisation of Civil Defence. Further draft regulations will be submitted when the substance has been worked out and agreed with the local authority associations.
I should like to take the opportunity of expressing the thanks of my right hon. Friend to the Civil Defence Consultative Committee which the three local authority associations in Scotland were good enough to set up, and to the various panels of local officials, without whose help the formulation of these plans would have proved a much more difficult task for the Departments concerned. These regulations will be welcomed by the local authorities inasmuch as they clear the way for them to proceed with the detailed preparation of plans for the carrying out of the various functions assigned to them, and the House will have little difficulty in approving them.

10.7 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: We do not, of course, offer any objection to the passage of these regula-

tions. The home service as well as the health aspect regulations are being taken in the case of Scotland because we considered that it was unnecessary, since the same Minister was concerned, that there should be two nights on which those should be brought before the House. There are one or two technical differences between the English and Scottish regulations. For example, there is no need to make provision for a designated Minister in the case of Scotland as the Secretary of State is the responsible Minister. That is so in the case of the ambulance service, since the Secretary of State is the Minister responsible for ambulance services in Scotland. The regulations follow in general the same pattern for the whole country, and as I said, we do not offer any objection.

10.8 p.m.

Mr. McKinlay: It may be that provision was made in the Act that was passed by this House, but hon. Members who have any local government experience know exactly what happened on the last occasion. Local authorities which got ahead with the job and incurred considerable expenditure found themselves the losers in the outcome. When the ascertainment was made and the grants were forthcoming, no credit was given for considerable expenditure which local authorities had incurred in getting on with the job. I have looked through all the regulations and I do not see any reference to who is to pay for the progressive development of this service. The local authority which is a designated authority has to provide stores and vehicles, it has to anticipate and be prepared. Will this be a charge on the Exchequer, using the local authority as the agent of the Government, or is this a charge which must be borne by the local authority? If so, that will press hard upon those authorities which have a low rateable value. It would be as well to have that point cleared up before we go any further.

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Carmichael: I wish to ask the Joint Under-Secretary a number of questions because, like my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr (Mr. S. O. Davies), I have great doubts about the scheme as outlined in the regulations. I realise that we cannot tonight discuss in any detail the likelihood of war or how devastating


war will be, as we should be going out-with the scope of the regulations. I suggest, however, that it would be far better for some time to be taken seriously to examine the scheme as laid down by the committee which made certain recommendations to the Secretary of State. It seems strange, in the first place, that we have regulations for England and regulations for Scotland. I do not think it completely answers the question to say that it is necessary because we must make certain appointments of responsible Ministers in England. If a war does come, I am certain that whatever scheme of organisation there is, we must have the greatest possible unity between the authorities of England and Scotland.
When I look at the regulations—I deal with only two tonight, the question of burial and the question of the homeless in the event of war—I wish to ask my hon. Friend this question. Certain instructions are laid down to the local authorities and one is that they must:
determine what buildings and land should be used for the purpose of such accommodation and maintenance as aforesaid, to determine what adaptations of any such buildings will be required in that event and to take steps to ensure that any such buildings and land as are not under the control of the local authority will be placed at their disposal.
One would imagine we were likely to engage in a war with bows and arrows and that it would be quite possible to segregate the community, and property associated with the community, before a war; that experts—I am sure they will be called experts—who will be appointed to prepare a scheme will be able to tell us exactly the property to be set aside for people who might be homeless; that they will be able also to tell the kind of materials, beds, bedding and furniture required in the event of such protection. Surely that is not facing the situation in a realistic way.
How can any expert, knowing the nature of modern warfare, sit back and map out the country in such a way as to indicate the land and property which will be divorced from the arena of battle? I could have understood the idea if it was possible at an international conference to discuss the abolition of atomic warfare or to argue that certain parts of the country should be removed entirely from warfare so that it would be possible, because of that to divorce the civilian popu-

lation, or at least the women and children, from the area of warfare and put them in some parts of Scotland where it would be practicable to have buildings and property, and where they would be free from all the dangers of war.
But when total war comes—it is terrible even to discuss it—there will be no corner of the country immune from the possibility of devastation and slaughter. With all due regard for and recognition of the heroic conduct of the people of London, everybody knows that the recent great world war was brought very rapidly to an end because of the application of an atomic bomb on two towns. We are alive to the fact that if war broke out tomorrow, the bombs used would be more dastardly in their power of destruction than those used on the previous occasion.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must keep to the regulations. We cannot discuss total war. Total war was discussed when the Act was passed. These regulations were made on the authority of the Act and we cannot go back on that Act. That is the decision of the House of Commons.

Mr. Carmichael: I do not want to get out of line with your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. All I wish to suggest is that, although the Act was passed, we have to ask ourselves whether the regulations meet the situation. My contention is that it is no use examining or passing these regulations if we do not take account of the possible destruction of towns in the event of war.
If I examine the position of the City of Glasgow with these regulations in mind, I must ask myself whether they are capable of having a detailed organisation to set in motion to prevent the people from being destroyed and to find them accommodation, because it is suggested that the people of Glasgow should set aside certain buildings and that they should find accommodation, bedding and clothing of one kind and another in order to look after the homeless. When I examine this problem, I must ask myself what will be the nature of the attack and how we can keep the people away from danger. If I ask myself those questions, it is natural that I should think of some towns which have already been visited with this type of destruction. I should like to ask the Joint Under-Secretary whether he is satisfied that these regula-


tions will afford sufficient protection. I think that we are passing them too lightly.
The same situation exists when we consider the regulation dealing with burials. The Government propose to appoint an officer and to commandeer certain property to be set aside to be used as mortuaries where people will be able to identify their relatives. I think that this is a cold-blooded approach to the whole problem of Civil Defence. Whether we like it or not—and if I am digressing I will withdraw my statement—I have the feeling that this is also creating in the minds of the people the idea that war is inevitable and that we must prepare some way of defending ourselves against it.

Mr. Speaker: This appears to be a Second Reading speech on an Act which we have already passed. We must stick to what is in the regulations, and we should not discuss matters which are outside the regulations.

Mr. Carmichael: I am sorry. I have been trying to be guided by past experience. I heard the Debate yesterday on the regulations about the clothing industry and the speeches covered almost every branch of clothing from weaving to the finished article. I thought that as long as I asked the Minister whether he was satisfied with these regulations, I should be in Order. We are entitled to ask the Government why they have framed the regulations in this way. Where is the guide? Where is the evidence that this is the right way in which to frame them? Where is the evidence that we have certain property and material which can be set aside? Where is the expert with the knowledge to tackle problems of this kind in the event of an attack upon a town?
Obviously, no one can attempt to divide the House on the idea that one is against Civil Defence, no matter how crude and how poor it may be. I admit that in the event of attack one must find some means of protecting the people, but I say that these regulations have been prepared far too hurriedly and that they are quite inadequate. I regret that the Government, who have done so much good and progressive work, should spend time with regulations of this kind, which are completely inadequate.

10.18 p.m.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I should like to say a few words in view of the speech of the hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Mr. Carmichael). We must ask ourselves whether we know the problem which we must face, in which case the answer is that at this stage we do not. Secondly, we must ask whether we should take some steps to provide something which will form a basis or a framework which can be developed as we see how the situation develops. Therefore, I think the Government are wise to introduce these regulations—it is very rarely that I say that the Government are wise but I say it sincerely tonight—literally as a framework, because we cannot tell what the problem will be until it arises, and as it develops we can change our regulations accordingly.
It would be most unwise to discard these regulations merely because they do not completely fill the picture, because we do not really know what the picture will be. Therefore, "so far so good" is what we should say about them, and we should pass them.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I quite agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Perth (Colonel Gomme-Duncan) that, if we are going to have what is technically called an emergency, certain preparations should be made for burying the dead, but, without transgressing the Rules of Order or going into the general question very much, I want to put some rather important questions to the Government.
In the first place, I want to know why this matter has been dismissed so airily, as if elaborate precautions are not really necessary. Surely, the justification for the regulations is that a very great emergency is going to be upon us, and, if it is to be faced at all, surely, the preparations should be adequate to that emergency? That emergency is going to be a really colossal emergency, quite different from the emergencies of the past, and I submit that these regulations are not in any way adequate for the emergency that is likely to arise.
There is far too big a tendency in these regulations to "pass the buck" to the local authorities. In the one referring to the burial of the dead, we find


that the local authorities are called upon to make plans ready for putting into force in the event of hostile action, but the local authorities will want to know what kind of plans they are expected to make and exactly what is the nature and the magnitude of the emergency which is likely to arise.
In the last war, as a journalist, I visited most of the places in Scotland where hostile action took place, and at Greenock, Clydebank and in Glasgow I witnessed the aftermath of enemy action. I ask myself what kind of an aftermath there is likely to be this time, and what evidence have we that these regulations are in any way sufficient. Have the Government given sufficient thought to this matter in order to inform the House of the reasons why these regulations should be adopted?
I submit that it is very relevant to ask what expenses are likely to be incurred. We are now told that the Department of Health for Scotland is going to reduce its expenditure by £6 million a year. Exactly how much expenditure is contemplated in these regulations? If we are to have any precautions at all, they are going to cost a substantial sum of money, and the Government ought not to delude either the House of Commons or the local authorities into thinking that they are not embarking upon huge expenditure involving both money and labour and at a time when they are calling for drastic economies in other directions.
I submit that the local authorities are going to be in a great dilemma. If I were a member of a local authority, like the county council of my own constituency or that of the city of Glasgow, I would like to know what kind of burial facilities we are expected to organise and plan for. Are we to be asked to plan for 500 or 500,000 casualties? I have here a Government report in which the nature of the problem with which the local authorities will be faced is admitted. In the Library of the House, there is a report of a Government Committee sent to examine what happened in the towns on which atomic bombs were dropped. While I will not discuss the nature of atomic warfare, it is very relevant to assume that in the next war atomic bombs will be dropped. If we

are going to act on this assumption, then these regulations are not worth the paper on which they are printed.
With what kind of problem are the local authorities of, say, Glasgow going to be faced? Glasgow is a big city composed of a million people, and when the atom bomb was dropped on a town in another part of the world, we are told that the technical team sent by the Government to assess the damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki concluded that one Mark I or Mark II atom bomb dropped on a British city—presumably Glasgow—would kill 50,000 people. It would demolish beyond repair 30,000 houses; another 35,000 would need extensive repair, and up to 100,000 houses would need minor repairs to make them habitable. In all, 400,000 would be homeless.
It is not a problem which can be lightly brushed aside. This is a gigantic problem of the social breakdown of a great city. We are not facing it; we are trifling with it. We are not even told what are going to be the expenses for rehearsing the preparations to be made. I read in "Reynolds" newspaper the other day—a newspaper which represents the point of view of the Government—that one atom bomb dropped on the City of London with the wind blowing in the right direction would put the city out of action. I understand that if a similar bomb were dropped on the City of Glasgow, all the precious scheme of organising, in the same way as we organised for the last war, would be useless. We are dealing with an imponderable problem, the dimensions of which we simply do not understand, and we are being asked in a few minutes to pass regulations dealing with this tremendous and most momentous problem.
We do know, according to this report by a Government commission, that the City of Glasgow would have 400,000 homeless. We would have to bury at least 50,000 dead. I know of no municipal plans which could cope with such a situation. I think that we are entitled to have this matter dealt with in the manner it deserves, instead of trifling with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael) has dealt with the question outlined in the other defence regulation, that which deals with the care of the homeless. Presumably my own local authority in the county of Ayrshire is


going to be asked to produce plans to find homes for half a million people. I do not know how it can be done. I have sat on that local authority for 20 years and am familiar with most of the local problems. I certainly do not know how plans can be drawn up by the County Council of Ayrshire, or any other county council in Scotland for the purpose of dealing with an emergency of such a nature.
I know that we cannot oppose these regulations, but we ought at least to have some statement from the Government as to what the cost involved is going to be. Are we going to be faced with a steadily mounting expenditure at a time when we are told that we must cut capital expenditure? Judging by a very brief examination of this problem, the capital expenditure alone is going to be colossal. I, for one, regard this as an insoluble problem, and would be very glad indeed to have some enlightenment from the Government commensurate with the enormous attention which this problem deserves to be given.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Fraser: Let me say a word about expenditure. Of course, the Act provided that expenditure incurred on the provision of these services by the Civil Defence authorities would be met in certain circumstances at the rate of 100 per cent. by the Government, and in other circumstances at the rate of 75 per cent. by the Government. I cannot tell the House just now which services will be reimbursed at 75 per cent. and which will be reimbursed at 100 per cent. That is another matter which is to be dealt with in regulations, and discussions are proceeding with the local authorities just now towards that end. But I must say that I regret the speeches made by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael) and the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). The hon. Member for Bridgeton said that the regulations would cause a scare. I should have thought that the hon. Member's speech, and the speech of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, might cause a scare. The bringing forward of these regulations, made under the Civil Defence Act, enabling local authorities to make their plans, or to be ready to make their plans, on receiving instructions from the Secretary of State could not by any stretch of the imagination, cause a scare.

Mr. Carmichael: May I say that I did not use the word "scare." But does the hon. Member think that if these regulations went through quietly that is the way to deal with them—regulations involving the whole of the civil population?

Mr. Fraser: I am not appealing for them to go through without discussion, or even for them to go through quietly. But this drawing of a horrible picture of what is going to happen in Scotland in future is not necessarily a good thing, and in present circumstances it is, I think, a bad thing. We all hope it will not be necessary to give effect to the plans which the Civil Defence authorities will be enabled by these regulations to make. We all hope and trust that there will be no emergency; that there will be no war. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire imagined an atom bomb dropping upon Glasgow and asked who was going to deal with the corpses and who was going to look after the people rendered homeless; what provision was there, he asked, in these regulations for dealing with these matters. I would say that we must deal with a war situation when a war situation comes, if it does. The only conclusion to which I can come, as a result of his remarks, is that if war should come we ought to throw up our hands in holy horror and say that we were going to do nothing to save ourselves.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I would be out of Order if I attempted to outline my proposals. But I am asking what are the plans for dealing with a situation when it has actually arisen through the dropping of bombs on two great cities.

Mr. Fraser: These regulations provide for functions being carried out by the Civil Defence authorities, and each regulation says that the Civil Defence authorities will carry out the instructions given by the Secretary of State from time to time. The Secretary of State cannot say just now what provisions will be made in Glasgow. Edinburgh or Aberdeen, if by some chance a most dreadful atomic missile fell on any of these cities. It is much too early in the day, and let us hope that he will never have to give any such instructions to the Civil Defence services. I do not think any real criticism has in fact been made of the regulations, and the criticisms which have been made this evening have been in regard to the


Government bringing forward any kind of Civil Defence provisions. That is a criticism which might well have been made when the Civil Defence Bill was under consideration last year, but it has little relevance to the regulations which are now before the House.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. McGovern: May I say that I think the Government are doing a wise thing in bringing forward these regulations. These will lay the foundation of the whole Civil Defence of Scotland. The creation of buildings or areas to which to bring casualties is a very natural and an ordinary proposition which the House should want to discuss. The spectre of war, with the horrible pictures which it conjures up, is something we like to forget; but everybody in this House will agree that, while making regulations and, we hope, effective preparations, we hope to God they will never have to be put into operation. We all hope that.
At the same time, it would be criminal never to make arrangements for the preservation of life or for dealing with the horrible effects of war. Although I opposed the last war, I must admit that in going around this city I was often very sorry indeed that greater precautions had not been made for the civil population which suffered so much in that war when it did come. We all trust that war will never come in this generation; it is bound to be horrible and deadly; but if the Government failed to make effective preparation—which might not be fully effective and might be very costly—it would earn the wrath of the people who were forced unprepared into the circumstances of horrible war.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Burial) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th October, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Evacuation and Care of the Homeless) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Hospital Service) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Sewerage) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Water Supplies) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Fire Services) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

Resolved:
That the Draft Civil Defence (Public Protection) (Scotland) Regulations, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved."—[Mr. T. Fraser.]

FURNITURE PRICE CONTROL

10.37 p.m.

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Order, dated 13th September, 1949, entitled the Furniture (Maximum Prices) Order, 1949 (S.I., 1949, No. 1706), a copy of which was laid before this House on 27th September, be annulled.
The story which I have to tell to the House is one less lurid than that to which we have just listened, but it is one, nevertheless, which I hope will enlist the sympathy of all hon. Members. It is the story of the "small man" in the furniture trade. I might say at the outset that I am fortified in hoping that I shall have the sympathy of all hon. Members when I read out words from the booklet of the party opposite, "Labour Believes in Britain," which say:
Labour's aim is to give a fair chance to all in industry, including the small man.
Those are very proper words, and this is a booklet studded with protestations of the same kind.
The group of individuals immediately concerned here are the wholesalers in the furniture trade, represented by the Furniture Traders' Association, of which there is a Scottish branch; they number some 145, and these are people working and employing themselves in this particular way. They, with the Manufacturers' Federation, and the Retail Traders' Association, go to make up the composite whole of the British Furniture Trade Confederation. I apologise for the complications, but it is sufficient to note that


there is an association for manufacturers, one for wholesalers, and one for the retailers; that is the position in brief, and these organisations have a national status, each dealing with the President of the Board of Trade, or the other appropriate Minister, and where there is a generic question concerning the whole lot, the Confederation steps in and gives its view.
There is the point of view held in some sections of the House and country that the wholesaler performs, on the whole, a useless function. I think that the acid test of that is that if he did perform a useless task he would not continue to exist. I have often used wholesalers in trades of one kind or another; indeed, they are a commonplace in almost every form of industry in the country. It is true that sometimes they are dispensed with, but what really happens then is that the retailer or manufacturer takes on the duties and obligations, and the costs and expenses, of the wholesaler and does the work himself. It is quite possible that the big concern can undertake these duties as cheaply as the professional wholesaler. But here we are dealing with a conglomeration or agglomeration of small individuals, each with his own commodities to sell, which the wholesaler handles and puts in some central storeroom, which is a function he is likely to be able to perform more cheaply than the individuals themselves. Therefore, we have the small manufacturer with his small workshop and the retailer with his shop and the wholesaler as a link in between.
In order that hon. Members may not think I am exaggerating my argument, let me read what the Working Party on Furniture have to say in their Report.
The wholesalers claim that the small manufacturing firms use their services because they have neither the transport or the sales organisation to cope with small orders from isolated parts of the country, nor yet the financial resources to enable them to give the long credit which is often required by small retailers Apart from these functions, some wholesalers buy from small firms 'in the white' which they finish and fit themselves. They also assemble in suites articles made by different firms. … It is also said to be customary in London for a wholesaler to finance partially or wholly a group of a dozen or so small firms, and that there are even occasions in which a wholesaler groups round him in this way as many as fifty small firms.
That is the usual role the wholesaler plays in relation to the small manu-

facturing firm. The Report goes on to say:
The wholesalers' function towards the retail trade relate mainly to supplying small retailers, mainly in country districts. The wholesaler has the advantage of buying in bulk for sale to the small retailers and of acting as a collecting centre for parts of suites bought from different manufacturers. The wholesaler may also run a showroom for the benefit of small retailers, and on occasion for the latter's customers.
These are the critical words:
The evidence before us suggests that wholesalers perform a useful function towards such small retailers, and that although the usefulness of their activities in other directions is questioned by some, there continues to be scope for a certain amount of business for wholesalers.
As I do not want to overgild the lily, let me read another extract:
We have no figures to show what proportion of the total trade is handled by the various types of distributors, but as far as we can judge the wholesaler plays a relatively small part.
There is the true picture as set forth by the Working Party; that they play a relatively small part and neither I nor my hon. Friends claim that they are a great part of the industry. They play a small part, as shown by the Report, but perform a useful function. In an indirect way the usefulness of the wholesaler has been recognised by the President of the Board of Trade, for they were used as a link for the distribution of furniture under the Import Emergency Association. It is a remarkable fact that this appears to be the only trade which, in the price regulations which have been brought out, ignores the existence of the wholesalers entirely. I have been unable to find any other price regulations which make no provision for a wholesaler to exist at all and in what I am going to ask, I am supported, I understand, by the Working Masters' Association, which is the organisation which represents the small manufacturers.
Now, if I may for a moment refer to the order itself, and particularly to paragraph 6 (b) and the relative Schedule which fixes prices, it will be noticed that in the order the method of fixing the maximum price at which an article can be sold to the public is to take the manufacturers' cost and then add 33⅓ per cent. to that cost for the retailer, a margin which the retailers complain already is insufficient. It must be noted also that


the 33⅓ per cent. operates upon what is known as the price paid by the first purchaser. If the retailer goes direct to the manufacturers, he is the first purchaser and I have no complaint, but if we have a small manufacturer who says, "I do not want to go to the cost and trouble of distributing my own goods; I want you the wholesaler to handle them for me and these articles which I would have sold to the retailer for £10, I am willing to sell to you for £10 less 10 per cent. Will you do the distributing for me?" A different situation arises when the wholesaler says, "I will." What happens?
He goes to the retailer, offers him the same article at the same price, and the public in no way suffers: there is neither advantage nor discrimination against the public. But the retailer has to accept 33⅓ per cent. on £10 less 10 per cent., namely, £9 instead of 33⅓ per cent. on £10. So the retailer, already complaining about the margin on which he is asked to work, finds that margin further cut down by using a wholesaler and so he tends to eschew and boycott the wholesaler entirely, and the wholesaler finds his trade prejudiced and even imperilled.
Why is it in this particular trade, and not in other trades, any such Government regulations should aim at the extinction of an individual whose utility is already set forth in the Working Party Report? He existed before in the time of free economy, and the acid test of whether a man is performing a useful function is whether he can continue to exist. There is indeed, if the Board of Trade is not careful, a heaven-sent opportunity for the bigger concerns to squeeze out the small man with perhaps the unwitting connivance of the Board of Trade, by saying, "Let us leave them out of our considerations and make no provision for them to be able to live," and so a competitor would gradually be eliminated.
I do not say that has purposely been done but the tendency is, in particular associations, for the men with the biggest trade to tend to have the strongest voice. It is I know, true that the Confederation, which is the body of the three conjoint members of the whole trade, have expressed no opinion one way or the other. I understand the Board of Trade was anxious to get a considered opinion from

the Confederation, whose reply was, "No, there is in this matter a cleavage of opinion and therefore each of these constituent bodies, which are each national bodies and have the right to go to the hon. Gentleman's Department, must argue their own case." That is the position and what I am asking, and what my hon. Friends are asking, is that there shall be a new order. I am not going to ask to divide the House tonight because I realise if, in fact, this order were dropped at present, there would be chaos in the industry.
I am asking the hon. Gentleman to ask his right hon. Friend to examine this very carefully to see if he is really doing justice to a body of trading individuals the Working Party supports in the words I have read and whether some sort of adjustment should not be made in some future order in the near future. I would like to emphasise again, and underline with all the force at my disposal, that what we are asking is permissive. We are asking for nothing mandatory to be put into the order, but that whether a manufacturer or retailer wishes to use a wholesaler he should not be stopped as he is now. If by some deduction in a future price order there is, at some stage of the proceedings, provision made for the wholesaler there would be no obligation on anyone to use him, if he does not perform a useful function; and if nobody uses him at all he will soon cease to exist.
It is said that there is a fear that if this provision were included retailers might form themselves into spurious wholesale companies to get the extra margin of profit. I say this could be easily guarded against. This is a permissive power, and no manufacturer need trade with such wholesaler unless he desires. In any case the wholesaler is provided for in other price control orders, and, therefore, that difficulty has been got over. I close by appealing to the Parliamentary Secretary to examine every facet of this problem and make sure the view is not being imposed by the big men who have an interest in continuing a situation which I think is unjust and unfair. Let him consider the whole of our argument and see whether in fact he is not destroying or tending to destroy the small man who is catering for other small men, who are, after all, the backbone of the country.

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Erroll: I beg to second the Motion.
I would like to reinforce the remarks which have just been made so ably by my hon. and gallant Friend. I would point out that the order, as it stands at the moment, is a plain discrimination against the wholesaler. It means that if a retailer is using a wholesaler he will get a smaller profit margin than if he deals with the manufacturer. I cannot believe that that was the original intention of the President of the Board of Trade. It is, nevertheless, the fact because in paragraph (6) subparagraph (b) the purchase price paid, or agreed to be paid, by the first purchaser is on the basis on which the retailer gets his percentage of 33⅓ per cent. Our proposal, namely that the wholesaler should get his margin and that the retailer's margin should then be calculated on the basis of the price paid by the wholesaler, disregarding the adjustment given to the wholesaler, does not make furniture any more expensive to the public but ensures that the retailer gets the same margin as if he went straight to the wholesaler.
It is most unreasonable that there should be this discrimination against the wholesaler when it is definite that he has a useful function to perform in certain fields. I know some efforts have been made by the larger and progressive manufacturers to enable shops to obtain furniture in single units or single suites and there is obviously no need for the intervention of the wholesaler. We are thinking of those cases where there is no need for the wholesaler, where the manufacturer is small or has no sales organisation necessary to cover a sufficient number of retailers. There are a number of retailers, particularly those in country districts who prefer to have contact with a wholesaler, who very often maintains a local showroom where furniture can be seen, rather than have to depend on the catalogue and to order furniture without having had an opportunity of looking at it first.
It is most important to emphasise that the price to the public would be in no way increased if our suggestion were adopted. By being fairer to the wholesaler it will not cost the public any more. This is in sharp contrast to what the Government are proposing in regard even to the purchases of furniture. Under

paragraph 1 (2, ii), we learned that the Government may buy furniture above the controlled price. They are only using public money so they can afford to be extravagant.
I think it is quite intolerable that there should be one law for the public in this matter, and no law at all for Government Departments. Why should they be able to escape the control laid down by this order? Why should they be able to come into a market, which may be rather a tight market, and outbid everybody else in the country, including business organisations, which may require office furniture in order that their businesses may be more efficient. It is really a form of priority, for these Departments can come into the market and say, "We are not paying the controlled price. We can give 10 per cent. over the controlled price because we want it quickly."
We have learned recently about Government motor cars. We are told that Government Departments have no priority. I am not saying that they buy cars above the officially controlled price, because there are no controlled prices, but what is possible is for a Government Department to come along and offer more than the usual price for quick delivery. The order does not say that the furniture will be used by a Government Department. It does not say who will be the ultimate user. It does not mean either that such purchases are going to be limited to Government Departments themselves.
The nationalised industries have been given the benefit of Government purchasing facilities. For example, in the early days of the National Coal Board the facilities of the Stationery Office were made available to it. The bargaining powers of the Stationery Office were brought in to get supplies for the Board at the expense of other claimants equally deserving of support. Here we have another instrument, under which, as usual, Government Departments get one over on the rest of the public, and they have the advantage of public money, too. This is all the more ludicrous when we are constantly being told that Government buying and bulk buying are much cheaper than the other way of buying things. When then do Government Departments have to have exemption from price control in the matter of furniture?


I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give us a satisfactory answer to a situation which on the surface appears to be thoroughly unsound in view of the most unfair discrimination against a small but useful class of furniture wholesalers.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Austin: I propose intervening very briefly in this Debate mainly because I have been associated with wood working or furniture in some form or the other ever since I was 14. I have enjoyed the honour of sweeping the workshop floor and making the glue, as well as securing an eminent seat in the boardroom as a director of a company. I understand that my services are to be dispensed with by my company next week, but that is beside the point.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison), in moving the Prayer, and the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll), in seconding, used very reasonable language. There is some considerable merit in what they say. But on the first point made by the hon. and gallant Member in regard to our protecting the small man, and our avowed intention to do so as laid down in "Labour Believes in Britain," there are many fewer bankruptcies today among small men than ever before.
This industry before the war was, without doubt, a sweat-shop industry, and it has been saved and preserved by the instrument of utility furniture and by orders such as this in the post-war years. It was an industry of the most intense competition with workshops of a character which I am sure hon. Members opposite would not have approved. We have gone a long way from those conditions and the industry has been regulated on a basis which provides both a good product and excellent conditions for the workers.
Hon. Members opposite are concerned with the wholesaler and the question was put: Why is it that, whereas in other trades provision has been made for wholesalers, there is no provision as yet in this industry? The answer, so far as I cc see, is that in this industry a single item of furniture can be transported and delivered from manufacturers in any part of the country to retailers in any part of the country. Obviously, therefore, on

the merits of that particular issue, there is no need for the retailer.

Colonel Hutchison: Who then in fact will do the transporting from the small manufacturer to the small retailer?

Mr. Austin: There are contractors available who undertake the transport of furniture from the manufacturer to the retailer. I have myself, when I was a lad, often loaded on to a van a single item of furniture for delivery to a distant part of the country; and there are also facilities for the delivery of furniture by rail.
The point was made that the small manufacturer who cannot supply a retailer direct goes to a wholesaler, who in fact may buy the products of something like 50 firms, and he offers him a discount. Does it not occur to the hon. Members that if the small manufacturer offered that discount to the retailer he would likewise sell his product direct to the retailer at a cheaper price? If he was prepared to give a 10 per cent. margin to wholesalers for the purpose of distribution from the wholesaler to the retailer, likewise he could offer that 10 per cent. or perhaps 5 per cent., to the retailer below the established price.

Colonel Hutchison: The point is that the small manufacturer and the small retailer never get into touch with one another. Perhaps they could indeed, but the medium for putting them into touch and stocking the goods and showing a range of goods is in fact the wholesaler.

Mr. Austin: That would be the case if there was not the well known enterprise which is in evidence in the industry. I can assure hon. Members there is no lack of enterprise on the part of either the small or the large manufacturer. It is the easiest thing in the world for the small manufacturer to get into touch with the retailer if he desired. And if he offered the special discount he is prepared to offer the wholesaler he would be assured of a ready sale.
There is this factor to be considered when we examine the merits of any industry and its distribution. The middleman, in this case the wholesaler, is, after all, occupying valuable space. He is employing valuable staff and taking up certain valuable resources in the nature of his task as middleman. It may well be that in our examination of the role of middlemen in industry we may have to


decide ultimately that in our state of economic stringency we can no longer afford middlemen of this character, and these resources, whether men or materials, ought to be used elsewhere in the national interest.
If everything that hon. Gentlemen have said is valid, and can be proved, then I do not see what answer is to be given by my hon. Friend. There may be some merits in not disorganising at this stage a small group of manufacturers who say they can find no outlet, and perhaps my hon. Friend will give some consideration to this aspect. May I make this suggestion to him? There is in the furniture trade one of the most admirable trade unions in the country known as N.U.F.T.O. It employs the service of some very excellent men who know a great deal about the industry. Before my hon. Friend and his Department come to a conclusion on this matter I want to suggest that he consults with those representatives of the trade union, who will, I am sure, be very well prepared to provide him with whatever information they have available. As I know from my own intimate knowledge of the trade union element of the industry they have an intimate knowledge and can well advise him on this issue. I hope that when he replies he may also consider the point relating to consultation with the trade union interests.

11.7 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. John Edwards): This discussion is in some ways a little strange because we have an order of 1948 which has been amended one or twice and which has been replaced by this order. As far as I know not a single change that is being made in the order we are now discussing is challenged. That is to say the differences between this order and the old one are not in dispute at all. The two points of difference which have been put up are first, that in this order, as in all the other orders, with the one exception of non-utility furniture many years ago, there is nothing which covers the wholesaler; and, secondly, that this order does continue the provision, which has been in all the orders hitheto, excluding Government Departments from its operation.
When the 1948 order was before the House no one raised any objection to it. It was not contested in any way, and as

far as I can see we are doing nothing here which we were not doing in the 1948 order and previous orders.

Mr. Erroll: We know much more about the Government now.

Mr. Edwards: Characteristically, the hon. Gentleman would like to involve me in party controversy. I thought it was a pity he did not follow the excellent lead of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who opened the discussion. Certainly on this matter I do not see why I should—and I would be doing a profound disservice to the traders concerned if I did—respond to the hon. Gentleman's invitation. When he throws down this suggestion that much more is known now about the Government he is inviting me to tilt a lance with him on party lines.
It happens that the Federation covering the wholesalers have been asked to come and have a talk with me about this whole matter. That being so—and I hope the hon. Gentleman in spite of his retort would agree—it would be wrong in these circumstances to put forward such a hard and fast line as would makes it virtually useless for them to come and see me in the course of the next week or so. They have already been invited to come, and I do not want to say anything which would prejudice the discussions, nor appear to have taken a final view on a matter which, I agree, is not an easy one.
But since the point has been raised, I must say a few words in justification of the view we have taken hitherto. Furniture price orders have never, with one exception governing non-utility furniture, provided for wholesalers' margins. We have not distinguished between wholesalers and retailers, but have merely provided for distributors. I would accept the view that it might be possible to prescribe wholesale margins without increasing the price of furniture. My doubt is that I am not really satisfied that the intervention of a wholesaler might not lead to furniture being sold less cheaply than it otherwise would be. That is one of the things I am hoping to discuss with the wholesalers in due course. It is common ground between us that the vast majority of furniture, even before the war, reached the public directly from manufacturer to retailer, and the amount handled by the wholesaler is very small.
It is important in present circumstances that we should not encourage the introduction or maintenance of more stages in distribution than are strictly necessary. It is important that we should have the utmost economy and efficiency not only in our productive enterprises but in our distributive enterprises as well. Therefore I am reluctant to take a view that would seem to encourage the use of wholesalers in circumstances where it does not seem to be necessary for the distribution of the bulk of the furniture. I doubt whether 10 per cent. of furniture involves a wholesaler in present circumstances. These are the kind of considerations I had in mind in the earlier discussions I had about this, which led to no inclusion in the present order on the lines suggested. But since there are to be discussions, and I have been at pains to show that I do not wish to close my mind to representations that will be made, I trust that the hon. Member who raised this matter will feel that it can be left there until those discussions have taken place.
The other point raised was about the provision which excludes Government Departments from its operation. It is only a few months since we had a considerable discussion about this point on another order fixing prices in respect of pottery. All I wish to say about that matter is that our price orders are designed to ensure that the shopping public does not pay excessive prices. That is what we are concerned to do. There is no need, it seems to us, to give such protection to Government Departments, which should be well able to look after themselves, and which are in as good a position as we at the Board of Trade in determining what prices are reasonable and what are not. Having said that, I would go this far to meet the hon. Gentleman.
There are some cases, I am convinced—and I tried to demonstrate it on the pottery order—where the structure of the order makes it essential that we should put Government Departments on the same basis as other bulk purchasers. There are other cases where we are in a position to reconsider our attitude on the need of the continuance of the common form provision which, I have explained, is to be found in all these orders going back to about 1942. The time has come when

that common form provision can well be reconsidered. I would be prepared to go so far to meet the hon. Gentleman tonight as to say that in subsequent orders, and in particular if any question of amendment of this order arises, I will look closely at the merits of the case to see whether in all circumstances such provision is desirable. I trust I have been as conciliatory as one can be in the circumstances, and I hope that the hon. Member for Altrincham (Mr. Erroll) will not mind if I do not respond to his provocation.

Mr. Austin: Will the hon. Gentleman say a word about the matter which I raised? That was, if an important matter is involved, whether he would consult the trade unions.

Mr. Edwards: I am sorry that I did not take up that point. Let me say that I would be happy to receive any representation from trade unions on this or any other matter.

Colonel Hutchison: I understand that with the leave of the House I may speak a second time. I only wish to do so for a very short time. First, I would like to thank the hon. Gentleman for his reasonable reply. There are two comments I would like to make. The first is that it must be fallacious to imagine that because a previous order has not been challenged everything is all right for all time if the same line is followed. That would make no provision for change coming about anywhere.

Mr. Edwards: The important thing is that the only point which the hon. and gallant Member himself raised is not in the order at all. He was arguing that something which was not there ought to be in the order.

Colonel Hutchison: I do not want to split hairs. I know that the hon. Gentleman knows quite well what I mean. The second comment I wish to make is regarding the suggestion that a middleman does not necessarily pull his weight. Provided that the price to the public is not increased, and provided the facilities are permissive, then a middleman, I can assure the hon. Gentleman, will not continue to exist unless he performs a useful function. Having said that, may I now ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HOTEL, BUXTON (SQUATTERS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Bowden.]

11.18 p.m.

Mr. Molson: For two and a half years I have been trying, by persuasion, to obtain for Buxton the abatement of a nuisance which has been becoming increasingly a danger to public health. I have repeatedly warned the Government Departments responsible that disease would certainly ensue sooner or later, and last August I was asked to attend an inquest regarding the death of a baby in the Empire Hotel. The jury at that inquest found that the death of that baby was, to a greater or less extent, due to the appalling conditions in which the squatters in that hotel were living. I therefore think it my duty to raise this matter so as to give the Government an opportunity to explain how it is that, after three years, this danger to public health continues.
This hotel, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, was requisitioned by the War Office 10 years ago. It is still held by them. When, at the end of the war, they ceased to use the hotel, they negligently allowed the squatters to enter. It was in December, 1946, that the Buxton Corporation first drew the attention of the War Office to the scandal of these squatters. It was in the following July that my attention was drawn to them, when the War Office made a somewhat casual attempt to obtain vacant possession of the hotel, and I was asked to go there to see a pregnant woman who was expecting a baby in three or four days, and was likely to be removed to a neighbouring workhouse.
I then saw the living conditions of these squatters, which has remained much the same from that day to this. Because the Corporation does not provide—and I think that in law it would not be allowed to provide—light or water, the conditions in which the 90 or 100 people are living are indescribably filthy. Sewage exudes from broken pipes on the outside of the building, and is falling down the walls. The areas in front of the hotel are heaped with waste which has been pumped away at intervals of six months, first, by German prisoners of war, sent by the War Office, and later by

British soldiers. One will appreciate that, in those circumstances, during the long and hot summer, the stench has been particularly obnoxious to those who have the misfortune to live down wind. Conditions there are much the same as they were three years ago. The blame in the first instance rests on the War Office, because that is the Government Department which holds this building under requisition. Immense damage has been done to the building and in that connection, I have seen casual passers-by pulling down railings and carrying them away, apparently for firewood. I cannot congratulate the War Office upon the efficiency it has shown, even in the way in which it conducts its correspondence.
This matter, as I have said, goes back to 14th September, 1947, when the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) was Secretary of State for War; I then wrote and complained to him that the letters which I was receiving from Lord Corvedale, and the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy), Parliamentary Private Secretaries, were not consistent; he wrote on 18th September, 1947, saying that they did their best to link up letters with earlier correspondence, but stating that Lord Corvedale's letter should not be construed as an acceptance of responsibility by the War Office for what was going on. Later, I received a letter saying that my letter of an earlier date had not been brought to his notice.
No progress has been made because as recently as 20th October this year the present Secretary of State for War wrote saying that it was quite out of the question for the Army to send someone to inspect the place with a representative of the Ministry of Health also with the assistance of the local medical officer of health. In fact, and strangely enough, Western Command had already sent an officer, who inspected the hotel in company with the Medical Officer of Health; that was what the right hon. Gentleman said was impracticable. Furthermore, the War Office tried at an early stage to put this on to Buxton Corporation. On 2nd September, 1947, Lord Corvedale wrote saying:
I understand that immediate action can, and I think should be taken by the local authorities who, under the Public Health Acts, have full power to initiate proceedings against


any persons causing a nuisance with a view to forcing them to abate such a nuisance.
I wrote to the Minister of Health who refused to accept responsibility, but who associated himself with our view of the complete impracticability of the suggestion of the War Office. On 24th September, 1947, a letter from the Ministry of Health said it was agreed that the powers of Buxton Corporation did not afford a very practical method of dealing with the existing unsatisfactory conditions. Shortly after that the War Office then made an attempt to pass the buck to the right hon. and learned Solicitor-General. On 14th May, 1948, the Financial Secretary wrote and said this had become very largely a matter for the Solicitor-General, and added, "Perhaps you will get in touch with Soskice." I proceeded to do so and the right hon. and learned Gentleman said he was sorry not to have written an official letter but he was waiting for official information. By that time, the War Office had taken the matter back in their own hands and called a further meeting in London. I have summarised my complaint against the War Office, that for 10 years they have been responsible for this building, that they have allowed this dangerous nuisance to be created, and that their efforts to deal with the situation have not been conspicious for efficiency.
I now come to the difficulties the War Office have had in obtaining possession. For some reason or other, the Treasury solicitor decided to apply to the High Court instead of to the county court, and for some incredible reason the High Court judge required alternative accommodation to be provided for the squatters. In view of the fact that these were trespassers, I do not know why alternative accommodation should be provided. I cannot believe, if the real character of these squatters had been brought to the attention of the High Court, that the decision would have been given. In several cases these squatters have already been evicted from Buxton Corporation houses.
I turn my attention from the Financial Secretary of the War Office to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. Naturally, when we found that the War Office were not able to get these squatters out of the hotel without providing alternative accommodation, the

Buxton Corporation and I made appeals to the Minister of Health and his Department to help us in the matter. On 11th June, 1948, a meeting was held at the Ministry of Health, at which there were present representatives of the Ministry of Health, the War Office and the local authority. At this meeting it was proposed that the Buxton Housing Committee should act as agents of the Ministry of Health in respect of the huts to be erected to accommodate the squatters. I was asked to use my influence with the Corporation, such as it is, to accept that suggestion, and they did so.
It will be appreciated that this was a courageous decision on the part of the Buxton Corporation. It was in some degree an invitation to other people to go in and "squat" in the hope of obtaining the alternative accommodation then provided, and naturally it caused a certain amount of resentment among homeless people in Buxton when it appeared that these squatters would be able to "jump the queue."
On 5th January, 1949, the Town Clerk wrote to me saying:
As you are aware, there is a proposal on foot to provide a site and the military authorities were going to provide the huts for erection on the site. I am afraid I am at a dead end as far as consent to this scheme is concerned.
He included a letter from the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, in which they stated they regretted that they were not in a position to answer his letters of 22nd November and 2nd December—the Ministry of Town and Country Planning were not yet in a position to give a final decision. Since six months had elapsed when the Government Department concerned had come to a decision, I put a Question to the Minister of Health on 20th January. I asked:
whether he is aware that, although in accordance with the advice contained in his departmental letter NW/935/717A/2/2 dated 2nd November, 1948, application was duly made by the Buxton Corporation both to his Department and to the Regional Planning Officer for authority to rehouse on the Lad Manlow site the squatters in the Empire Hotel, no answer has been received from either Department; and what action he proposes to take.
To which he replied:
I regret the delay in dealing with this difficult case and I am taking steps to clear it up as quickly as possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1949; Vol. 460, c. 310–11.]


As a result of his intervention on 29th January, the Regional Officer of the Ministry of Health wrote to the Town Clerk and said:
The letter from this Department suggesting that agreement to the use of the site for that purpose should be obtained from the Regional Planning Officer was sent under a misapprehension, and I have therefore to request that the submission to the Planning Officer be withdrawn. Correspondence is in progress between this Department and the War Office with a view to obtaining the early use of suitable land, and as soon as possible a further communication will be forwarded to you.
I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman on the 8th February and I had only an acknowledgment of my letter and on 25th February, therefore, I wrote asking him to receive a deputation. Obtaining no satisfaction, on 2nd March, 1949, I saw two senior officials of the Ministry of Health. I saw the Financial Secretary to the War Office. I saw the Quartering Officer at the War Office and then I saw the Minister of Health himself in his room in this Palace at four o'clock that afternoon, and I had a telephone conversation with the Treasury Solicitor in the evening.
I was promised that everything would be done and I thought that at long last something would be done. On 9th June, the Buxton Corporation wrote to the Secretary of State for War, asking him to take some further action in the matter, and because I had discovered that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War gives very little attention to this matter, I myself wrote to the Financial Secretary. I received nothing except a civil acknowledgment. On 28th July, just before the House rose, I arranged to see the Minister of Health and went over with him carefully, a letter I had received on the subject from the Buxton Corporation and he promised to send me a reasoned reply in a week or two. For that reply, I am still waiting three months later.
It has been proposed that a site known as Silverlands should be used because this is requisitioned property and contains a camp, but this site was bought before the war by the Derbyshire County Council for a new police station, and work upon it is due to begin within the next two-three weeks. The Ministry of Health are, therefore, confronting Buxton Corporation with a most difficult dilemma. If

they are to free their town from the scandal and the danger of these squatters in the Empire Hotel, they are required to go back upon an understanding with the County Council to provide a site for a most necessary and long overdue police station.
I am glad to say that on Thursday of last week, we had a further conference at the Ministry of Health, at which the Treasury Solicitor made a suggestion, which may possibly bring this scandal to an end, if the courts grant the relief to the War Office which will be asked. But the responsibility of these two Government Departments for this long-continuing scandal is really indisputable and is a cause of very great resentment to the Corporation and to the people of Buxton.
The Minister of Health has left unanswered my personal and urgent letter of 28th July. No satisfaction has been obtained from a petition to the Prime Minister signed by the 12 clergy and ministers of the Borough of Buxton who are concerned not only with the danger to the health of the people of Buxton, but also with the danger to their moral welfare. I, therefore, consider the time has come when one should say what the people of Buxton feel about the lack of action by the two Government Departments concerned, and I shall be interested to hear anything that the Minister has to say in reply.

11.34 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): I can very well understand the feelings both of the hon. Gentleman, the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson), and of the Council at Buxton about this most unhappy position that has been existing at the Empire Hotel in Buxton for so long. I am anxious, first, to make it clear as far as the Ministry of Health is concerned, and indeed as far as the War Office itself is concerned, that we have been trying to deal with this problem, and to help in dealing with it for a much longer period than the hon. Gentleman suggests. It was, as far as I can understand the position, on 11th October, 1946, that a meeting was held between representatives of my Ministry, the War Office and the Buxton Council to see what could be done with the situation that was then existing, when there were only three families squatting in these premises. It was then


agreed that a recommendation should be put forward to the Buxton Council that if they could offer alternative accommodation on the Silverlands Camp part of which they already occupied and managed, then the War Office on their side would secure the hotel against further entry.
Unfortunately, when the Mayor and the other members who were present at that meeting put these proposals forward to the Council at that time the Council agreed, as they were perfectly entitled to do, that they could not adopt this suggestion because they had their own homeless people to deal with, and felt it would be wrong to give priority to those who were in the hotel. In view of subsequent developments it may be a matter of regret that that decision was taken then. All through the Ministry of Health has tried to assist the local authorities in dealing with this matter, but I should make it clear that the Ministry itself is not the housing authority. It can only do what it can to help the housing authority to find that accommodation, which we had hoped would assist the War Office in their efforts to secure the ejection of the squatters. Continuous efforts have been made by the regional officers of the housing office staff of my Ministry to help in dealing with this problem, not only to help the local authorities to find suitable alternative accommodation, but also in trying to find institutional accommodation if other accommodation was not available.
It is true that the War Office have been making a series of efforts to secure the ejection of the squatters by approaches to the courts, not once but on several occasions, but the decision of the courts has turned on the question of what, if any, alternative accommodation is available. I have some sympathy with the point raised by the hon. Gentleman as to why it should be necessary to offer alternative accommodation, but that was the ruling of the court, and naturally we were anxious to do all that we could to help the local authority in their efforts to find such accommodation. The hon. Gentleman refers to a conference held in London on 11th June, 1948. But that was merely one of many conferences which have been held among the interested parties in this very unfortunate and difficult matter. The agreement

then was that huts to be provided by the War Office would be erected on the Silverlands Camp, and that when additional accommodation was available on the camp site it would enable us to offer alternative accommodation to secure the ejection of the squatters from the hotel. This project fell through because, in fact, it became evident later on that the land that was proposed to be used was not, in fact, available for this purpose as was at first imagined, but in the ownership of the Territorial Association, who, I understand, refused permission for the huts to be put on the site.
Then the local authority were asked whether they had any alternative sites. Discussions took place not only with the local authority again, but with the War Office, who did what they could to find some alternative site on which huts could be put, but the Council were not at that time able to put forward any alternative proposals, particularly having in mind the fact that if they were to enter into a lease of land very naturally Exchequer grants would not be available for it, a point which I think the hon. Member quite understood. The position now is, as he has stated, that new proceedings are being taken which we hope will result in the ejection of the squatters without alternative accommodation being offered in order to—

Mr. Molson: Is the hon. Gentleman going to deal with the withdrawal of the Lad Manlow letter, which seemed to result from my unfortunate Parliamentary Question to his right hon. Friend.

Mr. Blenkinsop: On that my information is that he was referring to what developed from the conference held on 11th June. As I understood it, the agreement at that conference was that it was the Silverlands site that should be used, and it was only when proposals about that site fell through that other sites were suggested. I understood that the position was that the local authority did not feel able to come forward with certain proposals they had about leasing other land, because there would be no more grant available from Exchequer funds.
In any case, as I see the position, it is most important that we should clear up this situation as rapidly as possible. The solicitors, I understand, are taking fresh proceedings, which will, we hope, result in the ejection of the squatters, and


my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War has given his pledge that he will do his utmost on his side to ensure the protection of the property as soon as the squatters have been ejected, and its derequisitioning as rapidly as possible.
In case there is still any question of alternative accommodation being required, the Ministry of Health felt that it was only right that we should hold on to and refuse derequisitioning of the Silverlands camp site in order that there should be no slipping up this time in the ejection proceedings, but I believe that the Buxton Council just recently suggested the possibility of another alternative site, which, in their view, would be preferable to the Silverlands camp site. Whichever way that goes, clearly the only point in which we are interested is that the ejection should take place, and that if it proves to be necessary to offer alternative accommodation then either the Silverlands camp or some other alternative site should be made available for it.
The hon. Gentleman has raised the question of correspondence he has had. As far as I am aware the only recent correspondence we have had with him about which, at the moment, I have information was a reply sent to him on 6th September of this year after he had discussed this problem in the Ministry and had asked for an early reply, which was sent to him on the day following his visit. He also wrote to my right hon. Friend on 7th October referring to the request of the Buxton Town Council to have a deputation received, and that was not replied to, I believe, until 22nd October, although it was acknowledged. That was because in the meantime our regional officers were making inquiries of the Buxton Town Council to ask whether they had any fresh proposals to make.

As our regional officers had been in touch throughout the proceedings with the town council they very naturally wanted to know whether there were any further matters that could be raised to make a deputation to London valuable. That was the only reason for the delay in that particular case.
I shall certainly look into the question of the delay in replying to the letter that the hon. Gentleman tells me he addressed to my right hon. Friend on 28th July, because we would certainly not wish to appear discourteous in this matter. What is more, throughout the whole of these proceedings, which have been long and difficult, may I say both for my own Ministry and the War Office, that the efforts continuously of our officers have been to try to find a solution of what was, of course, an extremely difficult problem. Indeed, as far as the Ministry of Health is concerned our regional officers and our staff in London have exceeded their strict duties—as indeed we would wish them to do—in trying throughout this matter to find some solution of the problem acceptable to the council which would really secure the ends we both have in mind. I am in agreement with the hon. Gentleman in hoping that the proposals now put forward will secure a speedy solution. He can be assured of our anxiety to achieve that end.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twelve Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.